Okay, I gave both statements a full read, and my immediate takeaway from this is...it seems like the GaaS initiative got a serious gutting.
The Naughty Dog and Insomniac layoffs? 99% willing to bet they're from the teams that were making the now-cancelled GaaS titles (Factions 2, Spiderverse GaaS). Firesprite? Also GaaS. London Studio? They were making some GaaS title that had concept art released. And Bungie already had to lay off some people, yet another GaaS-orientated studio.
Combine that with the reinforcement of committing to narrative-driven games, I think it's pretty obvious most of the cancelled projects were among the 10-12 proposed GaaS titles in development. I think with the recent success of Helldivers 2, SIE/Sony are seeing that if you put something out in that space which is unique, highly polished, and supported well, then you don't need to "test" 12 GaaS titles to see the 1-2 that stick the landing. You can make 4-5 GaaS and ensure all 4-5 stick the landing instead.
I'm not saying Helldivers 2 made then suddenly decide on the cuts; they were probably deciding this stuff well ahead of the game's launch. But yeah, I would say the affected projects are almost all among the majority of GaaS that were in-dev, so people already saying that ITT are on the money. There's a lot of contextual evidence for that as well; when Naughty Dog said they were cancelling Factions 2, they said they didn't want to turn into a GaaS-only studio because the amount of content they'd need to keep Factions 2 going would prevent them from making the big story-driven games.
So if that was a main reason for Naughty Dog...even if I feel the cuts in question weren't up to the studios in this case (obviously), there was probably a similar mindset for the cuts to these mainly single-player orientated studios that got GaaS teams added to them during the pandemic. Supposing they are sticking with 4-5 GaaS titles now instead of 10-12, I can say the following are probably still a go for release:
1: Marathon
2: Concord (it already has a release...year)
3: Fairgame$
I don't think any of those are going anywhere. They could be going through some big changes, but I think they're still coming. But the Horizon GaaS? That's a 50/50 at this point.
That's my read on the statements, particularly the Hulst one. And the other cuts seem they'll large be in some marketing & support, and a few tech position cuts, across SIE itself. I know there are going to be a ton of inaccurate takes, disingenuous and bad faith arguments over this. And there are going to be idiots who will spam "J
UST BRING ALL YOUR GAMES TO XBOX AND PC DAY 1, PROBLEM SOLVED!" because they don't have any understanding about business whatsoever.
Regardless, I find it very hard for anyone being honest with themselves when they read those statements, to not figure out that the games likely most affected were the unannounced GaaS titles, specifically from the traditionally non-GaaS 1P studios. This was bound to happen, and at least they're being upfront about it and there are severance packages for those being let go. Hopefully communication is clear and concise direct from the source, too. No finding out you're fired because you suddenly can't log into your work account, or asking a journalist because your company ghosted you.
Now about what Sony are going to do to streamline operations? Well none of us really know since we don't work there, but I've had some ideas. Hopefully I can make a thread over the weekend with everything there, I'll also try bookmarking posts that have good, sensible suggestions too. Also this time I promise it won't be a novel.
