Sony Lose 30 Full Time Testers

Speaking to Gamasutra, SCEA’s Patrick Seybold has confirmed that SCEA is consolidating its first-party QA teams, resulting in the loss of around 30 full-time job positions. The guys responsible for making sure Sony’s titles work when you get them have, in the past, done a great job whilst third party games can suffer from ‘day one’ patches.

Seybold said they were moving the groups into “one location in San Diego” and that the move was being made to reduce costs and “streamline the company’s organisation”. An article from Kotaku last week claimed the figure was closer to 100 positions, but Seybold would only confirm the 30 QA employees.

“We do aim to [additionally] have a contingency workforce down in San Diego, but they are by nature temporary, and depend on season and title release [schedules]. I wouldn’t say it’s ‘business as usual,’ because there’s nothing usual about our business,” said Seybold.