Sony Offering Early Retirement to Administrative Staff

As part of Sony’s efforts to cut their administrative costs by about 30% before fiscal 2015, the company is seeking volunteers for an early retirement program starting up on August 1, 2014.

http://playeressence.com/sony-offering-early-retirement-to-administrative-staff/

This stuff happens with companies with a large staff of old blood. Could be worse I've worked for companies that just make life hell for long term employees so they can hire young cheap blood.

I came into the thread expecting layoff's but atleast this is a much better scenario.

Still waiting for the part where this has sweet goddamn ****-all to do with gaming. Way to put a pic of Kuturagi in, too. Especially considering he no longer works for Sony.

Gotta push them old people out. Nintendo should do the same to Iwata.

Uh...Noted?

This will be the last Playstation unless they get their stuff together.

Gotta cut costs. Out with the old blood, in with the new.

Did he not retire? That is kind of what the thread is about.

Major difference. This is a voluntary program to avoid actual layoffs. Kuturagi was probably told to retire or get fired behind closed doors as a means to save face.

@gago-gago: Yes, the most successful playstation at lauch ever must be the last one. Get out of here.

Most companies just make working there a living hell until people start quitting, so kudos to Sony.

Early retirement?! Oh noooo...

It turns out that Mrs. Nakayama is very astute. Former Sony executives and current employees blame the fall of the firm on the loss of brainpower and good employees during the reign of Nobuyuki Idei, from 1999 to 2005. Idei was the first Sony CEO to rise up entirely from a management background and in the "Who-killed Sony?" genre of books and articles, he is regularly the prime suspect.

A middle manager at Sony, on background, recalls the Idei age.

"Idei decided to streamline the company and do massive restructuring. When we say, 'restructure' in Japanese-we really mean get rid of people. He put together an early retirement plan and strongly encouraged people to use it. Well, that didn't generate a lot of good feelings. When a company starts promoting early retirement, most people take that as a sign to get out while they still can. And many did. Maybe the idea was that by getting rid of the middle aged and older employees they'd encourage innovation and bring in some young blood. The effect was more like shooting yourself in the foot."

According to the Sony veteran, the middle-aged engineers and technicians that left were the same ones that brought Sony to greatness. They left behind a younger generation that was insecure, afraid of failure, and only willing to work with technology already in place—not build from the ground up.

http://kotaku.com/5960411/how-sony-is-turning-into-a-ghost-in-japan-and-around-the-world

RIP Sony

Is this another way of saying "retire now or it'll be the banishment room for you".

This is probably the last console generation.

Good and necessary call. The retirement may be offset over a term of years. While new cheaper blood is working to reinvigorate them. I said for a while, tough decisions in tough times but they can turn this around.

@Shewgenja: yeah he must have settled well, being that he posts here a lot. He still sucks Sony pole that's for sure.

@darkspineslayer: The PS4 has the worst gaming launch line up ever. People are still waiting for the games. And Sony have stated their focus for the PS4's future is streaming, virtual reality and wearable lifestyle technology, are you kidding me. These staff are lined up ready to retire early and get the eff off the Playstation dying gaming brand.

When are people not waiting for games? Are you saying, as an XBone owner, you have all the games you could possibly want on the machine? Get real with all that.