Fortnite (Free) continues to increase in both userbase and mindshare across gaming and non gaming circles but ever since E3 and specifically Nintendo’s showcase, Sony has been under fire from the media and from Fortnite players who own more than one console platform. While Sony initially was all for cross play with PC and mobile platforms when Microsoft and Nintendo were against it, things have changed. Both Microsoft and Nintendo are more than happy to play alongside each other and allow gamers and developers to do as they please with cross platform support.
The problem with Fortnite and Sony is that people had their accounts locked into the PS4 console with no way to link to Xbox or Switch. Right now, Cross play on PS4 works with iOS, Android, and PC platforms but not any other console. The drama had more or less settled and sadly everyone had slowly forgotten or accepted that PS4 cross play for Fortnite would not change but a new interview has reignited the flames.
Talking to The Independent, Sony chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida had some interesting things to say about VR and PlayStation but his comments on cross play and Fortnite are below:
“On cross-platform, our way of thinking is always that PlayStation is the best place to play. Fortnite, I believe, partnered with PlayStation 4 is the best experience for users, that’s our belief. But actually, we already opened some games as cross-platform with PC and some others, so we decide based on what is the best user experience. That is our way of thinking for cross-platform."
So basically, Sony doesn’t want cross play with other consoles because they think PlayStation is the best place to play for consumers. As we inch towards the next big console generation, it remains to be seen if decisions like this matter in the long run for Sony given their market position right now way ahead of Xbox but with Nintendo slowly gaining speed.
[via The Independent]
I mean, can't really blame them. They're the market leaders and can do whatever they see fit for their platform at this point.
As someone who mainly games on PS4 (and most of my friends do too) I find this a non-issue. It's the non PlayStation community that overblow it and make it a bigger deal that it really is.
Funny that the market leader feels they need to lock games to their platform. I have a feeling that Sony has played an Xbox X on a 4K TV and perhaps has seen the writing on the wall for the next generation.
I don't see any issues with this whatsoever, lets be brutally honest people will not stop buying PlayStation over this issue and single console households are very rare these days. If Sony have that strength of conviction, more power to them as they are more than entitled to be arrogant when it comes to their hardware. Their console has been consistently the best home console (IMO) since PSOne was a thing and I don't ever envision that changing, and yes, I have pretty much played on every home console that exists (my first console was an Atari 2800, my first home computer was a zx81) which gives you an idea of how long I have been gaming
I honestly don't see the big deal with this, I feel like we've beat this story within an inch of its life. There are possibly millions of other games out there to play, let's all move on.