Hudson on Mass Firing

Earlier today, we brought the grim news that Hudson axed a chunk of its staff. And right before the holidays, too. Apparently, the mobile phones division got hit the hardest. Hudson spokesperson John Lee sent us this official statement regarding the bloodletting:

Hudson Entertainment today announced a reorganization of its mobile games division. While the mobile game business has continued to grow over the last 3 years, porting cost management continues to be a challenge. As a result, Hudson has reduced its Q&A and porting staff, and initiated a more cost effective outsourced solution. Hudson will continue to develop, publish and market mobile games, with eight game titles on the product roadmap for 2008, including Bomberman Land, Military Madness 2, R-Type, as well as three new IPs. Hudson’s other business lines, including music, console games and digital downloads are unaffected.

“It is always a difficult decision to layoff staff members, but it was important that we realign our mobile games business to ensure that we can move forward.” says John Greiner, President and CEO of Hudson. “We are excited about recent developments in the mobile industry and we strongly believe in the future of the mobile phone as a content distribution channel. We will continue to produce and distribute quality games and other content for mobile phones.”