April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's largest maker of video-game players, may eliminate as many as 160 jobs at the PlayStation subsidiary in Europe, representing about 8 percent of the workforce there, to reduce costs.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd. sent e-mails to employees that some restructuring measures, including the possible job cuts, are needed to trim expenses, Satoshi Fukuoka, a Tokyo-based spokesman, said by telephone today. The European unit currently has 1,900 workers.

The company, which is also the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker, in January said losses at its PlayStation business will be wider than estimated for the fiscal year just ended because of price cuts to fend off Nintendo Co.'s Wii player. The Wii outsells Sony's PlayStation 3 by two to one in Japan and the U.S.

Sony in October projected the games business to post a 200 billion yen ($1.6 billion) loss for the year ended March 31.

Masahiro Ono, an analyst with Morgan Stanley Japan Securities Co., said Sony may narrow losses this fiscal year in the games business to 30 billion yen, helped by sales of the larger capacity PlayStation 3 model.

``I expect Sony to cut the retail price of the PS3 model with a 60-gigabyte hard-disk drive and release a new model with bigger storage capacity,'' Ono said yesterday.

Shares of Sony gained 0.3 percent to 6,560 yen in Tokyo, while Nintendo's stock dropped 1.3 percent to 36,650 yen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hiroshi Suzuki in Tokyo at Hsuzuki5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 18, 2007 02:50 EDT