EA Japan President Calls Out Microsoft for Chasing Short-Term Results Amid Mass Layoffs
The recent round of large layoffs at Microsoft affected thousands of workers and took place during a tough time for both the gaming industry and the economy. In total, Microsoft let go of 9,000 employees in a single stroke. While less than half of these layoffs impacted the gaming division, the effects were still significant.
This news surprised both players and game developers. Sean Noguchi, the President of EA Japan, shared his thoughts on the situation. He mentioned that while “restructuring” might sound positive in the West, in Japan, it’s simply seen as “layoffs.”
EA Japan’s Response to Microsoft’s Layoffs
In a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter), Noguchi said (machine translated), “In recent years, foreign-affiliated companies have become more inclined to seek short-term results from large-scale investments, and there are many cases where they change direction to meet shareholders’ expectations before enough time has passed. We believe this incident is a result of such a structure.”
Noguchi expressed his disappointment with Microsoft’s decision, emphasizing that the industry is shaped and supported by each game developer. It’s frustrating that developers may never release the projects they have worked on for years, and gamers will miss out on long-awaited games.
He explained, “What supports the game industry are the creators and staff who have been working sincerely on development. As someone in the same industry, I feel a deep sense of pain from this decision. The regret that something built over a long period of time will not be released to the world, and the reality that gamers who were looking forward to it will never even have the chance to experience it.”
In other news, former Turn 10 employee claims Forza Motorsport division has closed, with the studio now supporting Forza Horizon following recent layoffs by Microsoft.
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EA making comments about bad practices by other publishers has to be the funniest post of the year. They’d know how bad it is, they’ve been doing it since at least the early 1990’s.
Yeah and when EA of all publishers is calling you out, then it shows how bad you now are.
Yet they will still go to Gamescom and nothing will be said. It was disgusting last year them even turning up at TGS after what they did to Tango.
Disgusting slimy scumbag Phil needs to GO ALREADY.He was pretending Everwild was looking great only a few months ago when he clearly knew they were cancelling it.