EA lays off staff in Montreal and LA

Electronic Arts has laid off staff at studios in Los Angeles, Montreal and some of its smaller locations.

The undisclosed number of job losses are as a result of changes in the console market and the upcoming shift in hardware on the market following the announcement of the Playstation 4.

'For EA’s creative teams, this transition comes as no surprise. We’ve been investing and innovating on new technology for months,' said EA Labels president Frank Gibeau. 'Thousands of our existing employees have been retrained and redeployed to work on the new platforms and initiatives. But when it is not possible to redeploy a team, we soften the tough decisions with assistance.'

'Console transitions are a complex and challenging experience. I’ve helped navigate several and agree with an old saying we have at EA: Transition is our friend,' added Gibeau.

Some of those affected by the job losses are Army of Two developers EA Montreal and Visceral Games Montreal. EA confirmed that the studios would not however be shuttered completely.

Although Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom and even Blizzard had a presence at the Playstation 4 announcement press conference, Electronic Arts was absent from the event.

There is speculation that the studio made up of former Infinity Ward developers, Respawn, will unveil its debut title for the next console generation and as the studio's publisher, EA is waiting for this announcement to form the backbone of its next generation reveal.