Sega to cut more jobs

Console giant and now third-party developer Sega Corp., have today announced the redundancies of some 300 of its employees, whose jobs will be cut over the next two weeks as we approach the end of the Dreamcast's life. 300 employees will submit voluntary retirement within the next two weeks according to the plan, leaving Sega's payroll 11.5% lighter. According to Reuters, "the company will post 1.3 billion yen ($11.22 million) special loss for retirement allowances, adding that the plan will result in a 1.9 billion yen annual cost cut".

The company will already be announcing record losses due to its decision to halt Dreamcast production at the end of March. The system is currently being phased out, but can be had for £99 in the run-up to its demise. As we reported a fortnight ago, in order to try and stabalise the company, its former president and chairman Isao Owaka poured 85 billion yen of his own stock into the company, a donation of over £500m. Sega will still post extraordinary losses, and is expected to trim its workforce down to the bare essentials of a content business.

On the 1st of February, we reported that Sega intended to make some of its workforce redundant. It's not known whether that was a separate incident or whether the sources we quoted spoke of today's action. Either way, the loss of 300 jobs will have a big effect on the company, who have recently chosen to move into the production of third party software on the PlayStation 2 and GameBoy Advance.