PlayStation reveals workforce has grown by 20% and says it plans to ‘aggressively invest’

Sony Interactive Entertainment’s development workforce has grown by almost 20% this fiscal year following a string of studio acquisitions – and the company has suggested that more developer buyouts could be on the way.

Since the beginning of Sony’s fiscal year in April 2021, PlayStation has acquired Returnal developer Housemarque, PC port specialist Nixxes Software, UK-based Firesprite, which was established by former members of SIE Studio Liverpool, and Bluepoint Games, the Texas-based studio behind various PlayStation remakes and remasters including the PS5 launch game Demon’s Souls.

Following the publication of Sony’s latest quarterly results on Thursday, executive deputy president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki discussed the recent studio acquisitions and the company’s plans to continue growing its development capabilities.

“To further strengthen our software development capabilities, we announced the acquisition of Firesprite in September and Bluepoint Games this month,” he said.

“Both companies have excellent technical capabilities and superb track records and they have contributed to the development of many of our game software titles.

“Going forward, we plan to leverage these studios to increase the development capability of PlayStation Studios and to use the expertise necessary to deploy games to PC and mobile devices.”

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Totoki added: “As a result of the acquisitions announced since the beginning of this fiscal year, the number of PlayStation studios will increase by four to 16, and the number of developers will increase by almost 20%.

“We plan to continue to aggressively invest in our development capability going forward.”

Sony reported its second quarter financial results on Thursday. Its gaming arm enjoyed a record quarter in terms of revenue as the PlayStation business continued its run as the corporation’s most fruitful division.

During the three months ended on September 30, Sony shipped some 3.3 million PS5 consoles, taking lifetime sales to 13.4 million.