Happy Friday, everybody! Before you head off into the weekend, we’ve got a couple of highlights from today’s gaming news to keep you going. In today’s Gaming Daily, Sega is proposing voluntary retirement to over 300 employees, Square Enix is releasing Action and Stealth triple packs in North America and EA revealed that they will be running a five day beta of Battlefield: Hardline starting February 3rd. What are we waiting for? Let’s dig in.
Sega to axe 300 employees and focus on smartphone and PC Games
This shocking bit of news rocked the world this morning after Sega revealed that over 300 employees will be asked to voluntarily retire as part of the ongoing restructure of the Japanese-based company. Generally speaking, companies will often propose “voluntary retirement” when they expect layoffs to occur and want to avoid mass upset by offering people incentives to leave early.
Sega states, “Voluntary retirement will be solicited in the aforementioned businesses to be withdrawn or consolidated and downsized, while at the same time personnel will be repositioned in Digital Games and growth areas of Group mainly as development personnel, in order to establish a structure which can constantly generate profits. The purpose of these measures is to improve the business efficiency of the Group.”
Of all of the locations, Sega of America seems to be the hardest hit. As a part of the downsizing of the company, the San Francisco office will be shutting down and moving down to the Southern California location. They’ve projected 120 jobs lost between February 9th through the end of March of this year.
While the company still expects to make a profit this year, the projection is a lot lower. Come February 12th, we should have a clearer picture when the company announces the third quarter results.
Two Square Enix Ultimate Triple Packs are on the way to Xbox 360 and PS3
If you’ve yet to play Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Just Cause 2, Thief, Hitman or Deus Ex: Human Revolution, get excited because Square Enix is set to release two special packs March 31st for PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America. These are the same packs that released in Europe last year.
Amazon listings have hit the web for both packs this week and reveal that they will be retailing at $30 each. The Ultimate Action Triple Pack will contain Just Cause 2, Sleeping Dogs and Tomb Raider while the Ultimate Stealth pack will feature Thief, Hitman and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Do you think these titles are worth dusting off your old systems for?
Battlefield Hardline Beta test to begin February 3rd.
With the March 17 release date just around the corner, EA announced today that they will be running a five-day beta test of upcoming title Battlefield: Hardline. So if you were looking to try out the beta one more time before release, you’ll be able to do so February 3rd.
Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis stated, “There’s nothing more valuable to our team than the relationship we have with our community. Their passion feeds our passion and their feedback has definitely helped make Hardline a better game. We want them to play the hell out of the beta next week and trust that they’ll keep that feedback coming so we can continue to fine tune the game.”
The beta test will begin February 3, 2015 and will be available on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. There are no requirements other than a lot of bandwidth and space on your console to joint the beta.
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That’s all for today folks. Keep Nerdist tabbed for all your upcoming gaming news, reviews and features.
