All Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. employees in Europe totaling about 1,900 people have been told about the plan to cut jobs, but specifics, such as the number of cuts and which jobs will be affected, have not been decided, said Satoshi Fukuoka, the spokesman in Tokyo.
The company has no plans to trim jobs in Japan or North America, he said.
Japan's top business daily, The Nikkei, reported in its Thursday's editions that Sony Corp. will be slashing up to 160 jobs. Sony's gaming business was critically hurt by the launch delay in Europe of the next-generation PlayStation 3, the newspaper said.
Fukuoka would not confirm the Nikkei report. The job reductions in Europe reflect the company's need to adapt to the overall changes in gaming, not just the PS3 delay, he said.
The game console, which competes against Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co.'s Wii, went on sale in Japan and the U.S. late last year but was delayed until March in Europe because of production problems with a key component.
Gamers are increasingly using their machines for various kinds of entertainment, including linking to the Internet, watching video, listening to music or looking at photos, not just playing games.
''The way of enjoying entertainment is shifting,'' Fukuoka said. ''The move is aimed at maintaining our competitive edge in a changing business environment.''
Nintendo's Wii went on sale late last year in Europe, about the same time it hit stores in Japan and the U.S. It was expected to meet Nintendo's target for a global shipment of 6 million machines by the end of March, company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said.
It has not yet released final shipment figures for the fiscal year through March, but Kyoto-based Nintendo expects to have manufactured 7 million Wii machines during the same period.
Microsoft has sold 3 million Xbox 360 machines in Europe, where it went on sale in 2005, and the U.S. software company has shipped more than 10 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide.
In recent years, Sony has been restructuring and playing catchup to improve profit in its core electronics division, where it had fallen behind rivals in flat-panel TVs and portable digital music players.
But the hefty startup costs for the PS3 are weighing heavily on its revival efforts. Another problem has been the PlayStation Portable, Sony's first handheld gaming machine, whose sales are also lagging behind Nintendo's offerings, including the hit DS, which comes with a touch-panel.
Sony, set to release earnings next month, has repeatedly said it expects its gaming division to lose money for the fiscal year.
(YURI KAGEYAMA AP)
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