Nintendo and Microsoft team up to promote cross-play, while Sony remains silent

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/21/17488530/nintendo-switch-microsoft-xbox-minecraft-cross-play-marketing-sony

by mikece • 8 years ago

219 130 8 years ago

balls187• 8 years ago

The infuriating issue with Sony's cross play ineptitude is that because I cross-linked a PC Fortnite account with my PS4, I cannot use the same account to play on the Switch.

sli• 8 years ago

Probably worth noting that this is true even if you unlink the account from PSN. Linking the account once blocks that account from other consoles permanently.

jsheard2• 8 years ago

It's especially ridiculous for those who played the Paragon beta on PS4, as their Epic accounts are still blocked from other consoles even though Paragon has been cancelled and shut down.

donarb• 8 years ago

Blame it on Microsoft, :-)

http://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-nintendo-switch-ps4-...

shmerl5• 8 years ago

They should start promoting Vulkan for developers.

canardlaquay• 8 years ago

How is this related? It doesn't matter which engine is used in general, the only problem here is Sony. It isn't technical. Fortnite proved it when it 'mistakenly' allowed PS4 players to play with Xbox One players due to a 'configuration issue'.

skellera• 8 years ago

They never claimed it was technical. They pretty much said they’re in the lead so they don’t want to. Microsoft did the same shit last gen.

Leaders have no incentive to do it.

shmerl5• 8 years ago

It isn't technical.

Exactly. No Vulkan support is the same problem as not allowing cross play - lock-in in case of MS and Sony. At least Nintendo support Vulkan on Switch:

https://www.khronos.org/conformance/adopters/conformant-prod...

overcast2• 8 years ago

Sony is the undisputed king of exclusive content. Microsoft really has nothing, and Nintendo lives off of a once per generation Mario/Zelda/Metroid. My guess is that they enjoy their clubhouse, and don't want to invite others to join it.

wilsonnb23• 8 years ago

Nintendo is definitely the undisputed king of exclusive content.

Pokemon is the highest grossing media franchise in the world, higher than Star Wars. Mario comes in at number five, putting it above the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Batman, and Call of Duty.

We'll see how things shake out, but I would bet money that Nintendo will still be selling Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda games thirty years from now. I have no faith that Sony will even be making video game consoles at that point.

overcast2• 8 years ago

Like I said, beyond the holy Nintendo trinity, Sony has the entire rest of the exclusive IPs.

Noos2• 8 years ago

I don't think they will. They keep making the same mistakes over and over, and they have paid for it.

-they keep making systems based on gimmicks which limit the ability to make games on them or fulfill customer needs: cartridge format, second tv screen, motion controls,docking capability, etc.

-they waste a lot of time on gimmicks as well. Labo is a big failure, but its just like the ecard reader, GBA connectivity, and even to an extent Amiibos.

-their systems are underpowered and make it extremely hard to be a not-Nintendo developer on them. The Switch in particular has a horrid 3 party library of underpowered indie games you paid half as much for on other systems.

-They cannot embrace online

-their eshop is the most frustrating out of the three.

-Their exclusives are very hit or miss. Wii Fit died, Brain age died, Starfox is dead, Nintendogs is dead, Metroid is virtually dead, Advance Wars died, etc. ARMS seems to have died too. They are coasting on the strength of three core properties: mario, zelda, and pokemon.

Its pretty worrisome. They also didn't do themselves any favors by sunsetting the DS line, their portables insured against the failures of the home consoles. The portables also were good experimental platforms. If anything there may be a good risk they pull a Sega and just develop on others hardware.

smaili• 8 years ago

If anyone is curious, this was Sony's official response:

We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. Fortnite is already a huge hit with PS4 fans, offering a true free-to-play experience so gamers can jump in and play online. With 79 million PS4s sold around the world and more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we’ve built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles. We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms.[1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44477524

Someone1234• 8 years ago

That's a response that lacks a response. They don't address Switch or XBox cross-play.

tyfon• 8 years ago

It's the response of a dominant player.

Microsoft had the exact same stance when they had the 360 while Sony on the struggling PS3 wanted cross play.

ashleyn• 8 years ago

I've been following Sony for twenty years or so. "Interop" is not a word in their vocabulary. There are many innovations such as Minidisc, SACD, and ATRAC that never truly took off because they wanted to run proprietary from end to end and own all the rights. They never took a lesson from why IBM's microchannel bus doomed the PS/2.

Proprietary standards hamper adoption and success. Many try to be Apple but only one can end up pulling it off.

niftich2• 8 years ago

The Switch and XBox One aren't really competitors to the same degree as the Xbox and PS4, and the games in this announcement aren't the sorts of games that sell a particular console. Rather, they're the sort of stuff you can sink time into between your purchases of AAA exclusives.

Annoucing this cross-play is a cheap win-win for both MS and Nintendo: For Nintendo, it solidifies that in the right context, the ultraportable Switch is a comparable platform to the cabinet-bound boxy consoles that are still current in their generation -- a marketing victory that handily exceeds the reputation of its predecessor, the Wii U. For Microsoft, it legitimizes their cross-play message by spreading beyond platforms that they both happened to own, and makes Sony look bad.

metasaval5• 8 years ago

I think you're underestimating the popularity of Minecraft and Fortnite. There are absolutely people out there who only play Fortnite and nothing else. But you are right in that the Switch doesn't compete with the XBoX the same way the PS4 does (Nintendo consoles always played by their own rules). But Microsoft has already said that they'd be fine with crossplay with PS4, it's Sony holding up the line. Epic already accidentally (or so they say) enabled XBoX and PS4 crossplay once before for a short amount of time [1], so the work is already done, too.

[1] https://kotaku.com/epic-accidentally-allows-xbox-and-ps4-cro...

cfadvan• 8 years ago

Why would a company care about people who only play Fortnite? They’re not going to be buying anything other than those games, and when the fad dies away, they will too. It’s one thing to cater to casual players, who will buy lots of different games, another to Madden/COD players who will buy yearly installments. Pandering to s single fad that will be replaced within a year though is crazy. People will get tired of Battle Royale, just like they did with Hero shooters, and the fads before that.

jetti• 8 years ago

One of the great things about Rocket League is the cross play. While, as a PS4 owner, I cannot play against those on XBox or Switch, I am able to play against PC players in addition to PS4. It is always nice increasing the player pool. That said, it is really frustrating that Sony is so stubborn on this issue.

SpliffnCola• 8 years ago

I’m excited about the upcoming _true_ cross platform play coming mid July/August.

You will be able to create a new in-game gamertag; it will require re-adding friends but I’m really excited to be able to finally play remotely with my friends!

padobson2• 8 years ago

I don't think it's out of line to say Sony understands the platform business better than anyone. And I'm not just talking about console makers, I'm talking about all platforms: iOS, Android, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc etc.

Sony's first goal every generation since the PSOne has been winning game developers to their side. Game devs like large user bases, but that's only one aspect of why a developer picks a console. Sony's primary focus every generation is to get everything else right: development tools, hardware storage and performance, consistent controller design, software medium, and so on. They've had some misfires here and there (the Cell processor comes to mind), but they typically outperform their competition in all of these categories.

I think it's because Sony knows their customer isn't the gamer, it's the game developer. The game developer's customer is the gamer. Again, user base numbers attract developers, but Sony recognizes that user bases are driven by developer support. It's definitely reciprocal, but Sony's dominance comes from understanding that catering to the developer is paramount. That's why they've consistently created an environment that breeds killer apps. I can't think of another platform maker in the last 20+ years who's been better.

So after 20 years of building up that kind of leverage with developers, it doesn't make much sense to just give part of it away until game developers make it clear they need it.

TAForObvReasons3• 8 years ago

Sony understands the platform business better than anyone. And I'm not just talking about console makers, I'm talking about all platforms: iOS, Android, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc etc.

Out of curiosity, seeing as how some of those platforms are the bread and butter of companies that have market caps that far exceed Sony, what leads you to believe that?

padobson2• 8 years ago

I would chalk the market cap differences up to the differences in the industries. Internet search is more than 5 times the size of console gaming, and vastly more profitable.

I think a true quantitative comparison would have to account for market size, market share, age of the market, and typical industry profit margins.

A qualitative comparison might be more instructive, though. How many truly successful user experiences have been built on top of Facebook? Newsfeed, Messenger, and Ads? Maybe Farmville? On top of Google? Search, Gmail, Analytics and Ads? Less than a handful for both. Playstation, on the other hand, has had thousands of successful user experiences over a twenty year period.

Facebook, Google, and others often seem to have an adversarial relationship with their 3rd party developers. I could only imagine what types of amazing experiences we could be enjoying if they adopted the licensing model that's led Sony to dominate its industry for 20 years.

partiallypro• 8 years ago

Game developers wouldn't increasingly be using cross-platform play if they hated it. Sony's decision has nothing to do with developers, it's because they're scared it eases the ability for people to leave their platform by removing a barrier.

niftich2• 8 years ago

Developers and commentators have long held that developing for the PS2 and PS3 was fairly awful [1][2][3][4], so I'm not sure I buy your point.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/02/oddworld-creator-ex-s...

[2] https://venturebeat.com/2014/07/06/last-gen-development/

[3] https://www.engadget.com/2009/04/03/killzone-developer-says-...

[4] https://gamingbolt.com/developer-explains-what-its-like-deve...

yannickt• 8 years ago

“Sony's primary focus every generation is to get everything else right: development tools, hardware storage and performance, consistent controller design, software medium, and so on.”

Has the PlayStation really done consistently better than the Xbox on all those fronts? Looking at development tools, online gaming, performance and storage, I could see a case for the PS4, but did Sony do a better job with the PS2 or PS3, than Microsoft with the Xbox/Xbox 360?

The perspective is interesting nonetheless.

urda• 8 years ago

Huh? Your entire comment is confusing to be honest and misleading.

The platforms you rattled off are far, far larger than Sony. So I don't think we can follow your point on "Sony understands the platform business better than anyone" at all.

The PS'es for a lot of their history were not dev friendly at all. This point also get's thrown at the window sadly [1] [2] [3].

Which then makes "I think it's because Sony knows their customer isn't the gamer, it's the game developer ... Sony's dominance comes from understanding that catering to the developer is paramount." nonsensical as it has been demonstrated that it's not that either.

"I can't think of another platform maker in the last 20+ years who's been better."

Eh, you did a pretty good job yourself listing off far better and larger platforms at the start of your comment so I think one can easily.

[1] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.870167-Oddworl...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167371

[3] https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on...

ageitgey4• 8 years ago

I don't think this is the whole story - or at least not the right strategy for Sony anymore. Sony's PS3 was more or less a market disaster and they were able to claw their way back to #1 by selling the PS4 for $100 less than the Xbox One and taking advantage of Microsoft's terrible, self-centered move of pushing for always-on DRM. Now Sony is making the same kinds of self-centered moves with the PS4 because they are the current leader and feel like they can get away with it.

The tech in these platforms is more similar than it's ever been. The consoles are trending towards basically being stripped down multi-core PCs optimized for video and memory bandwidth - especially now with half-step upgrades like the PS4 Pro and XBOne X. For many game developers building on top of engines like Unity or Unreal, they are no longer specifically designing for XBox or PS4 - they are targeting a common engine platform and then just tweaking the game content as needed to make sure it performs well enough on each platform.

Combine this with the fact that video games cost more than ever to develop and it makes less sense than ever for a 3rd party publisher to target any single platform. In order to recoup their dev budgets and make big profits, they want as huge an install base as possible. Epic would want Fortnite to run on toasters if they though people would play it there. Platform exclusives are essentially a thing of the past except in cases where the platform holder funds the development or owns the IP.

Sony may be the current leader in building first-party, system-exclusive action games to sell their platform, but the number of people who play those games is dwarfed by the mass appeal of something like Fortnite. By gaining the reputation as "the worst place to play Fortnite" (literally the world's most popular game), they are turning off a whole new generation of customers who may swap back to Microsoft when the next console generation hits.

In my opinion, this is nothing but Sony taking it advantage of it's #1 console position to try to force people to give them more money in the short term. I'm sure Microsoft would be doing the same thing if their current market positions were reversed. But I don't think it's good for their long-term business.

bepotts• 8 years ago

On top of what you just said, a new console generation will be started (probably) in 2020. That means that both Sony and Microsoft's console hardware sales will reset to zero. If you're looking to buy the next console, will you picking up the platform that locks you into playing only with people on one platform or the platform that allows you to play with everyone? Many people will be buy the next Playstation for the exclusives yes, but Sony's walled garden will give some new buyers a pause.

Sony isn't thinking long term. Either that, or they mistakingly believe that they're crushing the competition due to their business strategy, instead of Microsoft and Nintendo both shooting themselves in the foot. Microsoft will not be making their 2013 mistakes again during the next hardware launch.

strictnein• 8 years ago

When I think "developer friendly", my mind is, of course, drawn to the PS3's Cell Processor.

Noos2• 8 years ago

when I think "low cost shovelware" my mind is drawn to the Wii. Keep in mind developer unfriendly isn't entirely a bad thing...

post_break2• 8 years ago

Nintendo has started to brick the game cartridges coming from consoles that were hacked. So you could buy a game second hand that doesn't work. Nintendo isn't in the clear yet.

e1ven• 8 years ago

I’m sure every company has done lots of things various people disapprove of.

This is an article about cross-play and your comment isn’t related to that, is it?

post_break2• 8 years ago

Well if you buy a used switch game, that has been banned, you can't cross play online with it. You have no way of knowing if that game has been banned either. So it's related to online play.

davb• 8 years ago

My understanding is that each Switch cartridge has a unique key or certificate. People have begun dumping the cartridge ROMs (including certificate) and sharing these online or burning them to writable carts. Nintendo is blocking these keys from online play.

The upset seems to be over the very narrow case where someone dumps a ROM, shares it widely enough that Nintendo blocks it, then sells the genuine progenitor cartridge to an unwitting customer.

I can’t see that happening too often, it only affects online play, and it’s the exact same risk someone takes buying a used console (which are frequently blocked from online play for a number of TOS violations).

I’m fine with this.

While I am generally against DRM and over-reaching copy protection mechanisms, I think this is reasonable. Especially in the context of online play.

LocalH• 8 years ago

They've done no such thing. Blocking online play with the signatures from dumped and pirated carts, maybe. But they haven't actually bricked any systems or carts - "banned from network services" is nowhere near "bricking".

VectorLock• 8 years ago

Sony is the king of the console heap so they have no reason to allow cross-play. "Everybody is on PS4, so I need to get a PS4 to play with them" is a huge driver of their sales. That is the moat around their lucrative console castle. There is no way they'd allow a bridge to Xbox or Switch like Microsoft and Nintendo push-- it would only weaken their Sony's position and strengthen their competition's.

Its shitty but the ball is in their court.

zeroDivisible• 8 years ago

I really would want to see Nintendo Switch to get even more mainstream than it is now.

Not that I appreciate their way too (supposedly the anti-piracy / console-locking measures in Switch are first grade?) but this would put pressure on Sony to possibly stop blocking cross-play.

ageitgey4• 8 years ago

I think that in any large company in a market leading position with a lot of turnover, it's essentially impossible to convince them to act in their own long-term best interest. Microsoft is acting scrappy right now (because they have to) and Sony is acting like a self-satisfied dinosaur (because no one is going to get promoted for doing anything different).

Sony is thinking short term - "If we open up on Fortnite, we'll sell less content now through our digital store". So no one at Sony is willing to fight for this. It won't make any charts go up for the next quarterly earnings.

But the long-term view is that they are teaching an entire new generation of gamers that "Playstation is the worst place to play Fortnite - the world's most popular game". That is going to be a disaster the next time new consoles are released - just like how Microsoft made similarly dumb moves when they first launched the XBox One.

cptskippy• 8 years ago

What is the dominant platform for Fortnite? There are 125 million registered users and 3.3 active concurrently but I have yet to see any numbers broken down by platform.

If we assume PS4 is not the dominant platform then your assertions might be true, however if PS4 is the dominant platform then they're absurd.

Sony is teaching the same lesson as Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Atari. It's best to buy the same console as your friends.

mirceal5• 8 years ago

the problem with dinosaurs is that they go extinct. It's gonna take a while but with this kind of attitude they are more or less ensuring they don't have a future.

TAForObvReasons3• 8 years ago

Sony is thinking long term. As is Microsoft. It's short-term to cater to a specific game that happens to be popular today.

In the long term, neither console maker wants cross-platform support. They want to create a situation where everyone has to have both the Sony device and the Microsoft device. That's an equilibrium that both companies are happy with. Pure cross-platform play ends in consumers not needing both devices and hence total sales will drop.

When the "pendulum swings" and Xbox has a dominant generation, expect Microsoft to reject cross-platform play.

fokinsean• 8 years ago

"Everybody is on PS4, so I need to get a PS4 to play with them"

To be honest that is why a few friends and myself got PS4s. We had quite a few friends on the platform and I already had an xbox, but I wanted to play with them so I got a PS4.

What's interesting is that you can cross play with PC and Mobile on PS4 though. It sounds like they just don't want to work with Microsoft or Nintendo.

wilsonnb23• 8 years ago

I think the real reason Sony is so hesitant to implement crossplay is not that they are so far ahead of Microsoft in console sales, but because they are actually quite close in certain markets.

If you look at the global sales, then yes, the PS4 is stomping the Xbox One into oblivion at the moment. If you look at the US sales, the difference between them is much smaller [1]. If Sony enables crossplay, they will probably lose a lot of sales to Microsoft in the US because they lack the overwhelming popularity that they have in Japan and other markets.

This article [2] shows just how poorly the Xbox sells in Japan - the week the Xbox One X launched, only 1,639 were sold. Only 49 units of the less powerful Xbox One S were sold. For comparison, almost 30,000 PS4 and PS4 Pros were sold. Even the PS Vita beat out the Xbox, with around 3,000 sold.

[1] http://www.vgchartz.com/article/271063/ps4-vs-xbox-one-vs-sw...

[2] https://kotaku.com/here-are-the-xbox-one-xs-japanese-sellout...

robotnixon• 8 years ago

Sounds similar to Apple's stance on not porting iMessage to Android.

endemic• 8 years ago

Nah, that'd be more like if iMessage _was_ on Android, but once you used it there you could no longer use it on your iPhone.

floatingatoll2• 8 years ago

I am so glad Sony doesn’t offer crossplay, especially with PC, for one simple reason: It’s nearly impossible to cheat on a PS4 game, and a console ban costs hundreds of dollars, and that protects me from being exposed to cheating; via save files, via video driver hacks, via ‘I only use it for development’ memory patchers. (Network manipulation cheating still occurs, but that can’t be used without other players reporting you, and is an issue on all platforms.)

jsheard2• 8 years ago

Fortnite doesn't have this problem because it only places you in cross-platform games if there are multiple platforms in your party.

If you want a guaranteed cheat-free experience you can always play solo or with a same-console party and never see any PC users.

eropple• 8 years ago

Sony happily permits crossplay with those mustachio-curling memory-patching dreaded PC players. Fortnite does allow crossplay between PC and PS4 and Mac and mobile. PC/PS4 crossplay is also available in Rocket League and some other games. The only gate is between PS4/Xbox and PS4/Switch--and both platforms seem very much on par with the PS4 in terms of anticheat protection.

There is no real argument to this except "Sony can be a dick, so Sony will be a dick." You can take off your cape now.

floatingatoll2• 8 years ago

I’m glad that Fortnite and Rocket League have found success with crossplay, as that indicates that Sony has made crossplay possible.

I’m sad to see you dismissing “authoritarian control over a platform” as “being a dick”, though. I prefer my society less authoritarian and my gaming platforms (and coding guidelines) more authoritarian, but I guess this isn’t the right venue to discuss that dissonance.

voltagex_• 8 years ago

impossible to cheat on PS4

Technically no: there's exploits for lower versions of the PS4 firmware. I don't think there's anything out for the Xbox One so you're still good there. The Switch is wide open but Nintendo are quick on the banhammer if you go online with a modded console.

idonotknowwhy• 8 years ago

Nintendo are quick on the banhammer if you go online with a modded console.

We're working on emunand so soon nintendo you'll be able to stay on lower system firmware but still run the latest for online and newer games.

mtgx• 8 years ago

Sony is missing out on a partnership with Steam, especially if they would just support Vulkan on PS5. The PS5 could also be a "Steam machine".

codegoblins2• 8 years ago

Why would sony want to cede their own very profitable digital games storefront to valve?

elsonrodriguez• 8 years ago

Sony had a deal with Valve a while back for Portal 2, don't know what happened to it.

protoster2• 8 years ago

Very much relevant: https://xkcd.com/743/ I'm glad that this is making news, I hope people learn something. Sony lures people with shiny exclusives, don't take the bait or it's only going to get worse.

adventured• 8 years ago

Shiny exclusives? That's Nintendo's specialty.

Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, etc.

protoster2• 8 years ago

I think Bloodborne, Uncharted, God of War, Last of Us qualify. Hits a different a demographic.

Edit: Guess it's less shiny, more grimy violent third person-y

lebrad• 8 years ago

The issue of Sony disallowing cross-play is not the reason for controversy in this case.

It's actually because logging in to a Fortnite account on PS4 irreversibly locks that account to Sony's walled garden.

I created my Fortnite account on PC and played there. Then I logged in on PS4, and played there. Now when I try to log in on Switch, I'm not able to. Here's the actual error message given:

"This Fortnite account is associated with a platform which does not allow it to operate on Switch. Neither the Fortnite website nor Epic Customer Service are able to change this. To play Fortnite on Switch, please create a new account."

The problem is that even disassociating the account from Sony won't then allow me to use my Fortnite account outside of Sony's walled garden. The account is permanently tainted by PlayStation.

Most importantly, the irreversibility of Sony's taint upon your account isn't disclosed until after the fact. It's a classic anti-user misdeed.

Anyway, Hacker News seems like the right place to ponder SaaSS user account foibles.

mirceal5• 8 years ago

To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.

I have lost any kind of trust in Sony. After the massive hacks, shitty anti-customer attitude and now locking the Fortnite accounts, I will never buy another Sony product in the future.

ribosometronome• 8 years ago

Everybody understands the value of crossplay and portability of 'stuff'. It's just not particularly valuable when you're in a dominant position.

All of these companies have had pretty shitty, anti-customer attitudes. Microsoft popularized pay-for-online services with Xbox Gold and now it's standard to have to pay a monthly fee to play your console games online. Conservely, crossplay would be the standard now is Microsoft has jumped on board when Sony was supporting it last generation. Nintendo hasn't been able to maintain a reasonable level of presense-across-device, creating a massive headache when changing devises or getting a new console and having to repurchase things you shouldn't have to. I can't really see the justification for not buying a Sony product but continuing to support Xbox or Nintendo given all of their attitudes over the years.

taurath3• 8 years ago

To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.

You haven't really looked at app platforms before, have you. If you buy evernote on IOS, you're sure not getting it on android.

MS is being friendly to it because they're behind. In the Xbox 360/PS3 days, it was Sony asking to do cross-play and Microsoft denying it. Its a PR play, and you're buying it.

jbigelow76• 8 years ago

The issue of Sony disallowing cross-play is not the reason for controversy in this case.

Hmm, so I wonder what the cause of the controversy really is.

It's actually because logging in to a Fortnite account on PS4 irreversibly locks that account to Sony's walled garden.

Oh, so it is Sony.

Regardless of how Sony went about the cause I don't see how you can make a distinction regarding the effect.

tdbgamer• 8 years ago

Uhhh did he say it wasn't Sony's fault? His point was cross-play isn't the worst part, but the way Sony locks your account in. Don't see how that exonerates Sony.

madrox3• 8 years ago

Getting into even MORE nuance.

Having worked on federated login with Sony, I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates. It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms. It's for the same reason Spotify subscriptions use in-app purchase but you put your credit card into Uber and Lyft. Allowing cross-play means the in-game items you paid for with loot crates should transfer.

Aha, HN devs say, why don't you just carry a bit with those items that were paid for and hide them on other platforms? This is, more or less, how Blizzard deals with this. However, if that's not how you set it up out of the gate, that can be a painful thing to do retroactively. That's why I feel it's a bit disingenuous to heap ALL the hate on Sony. Epic could possibly work around this.

That said, everything about the account is cosmetic-related. You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...but how big of a deal is that really? It doesn't affect gameplay. That's probably what Epic is thinking.

PurpleBoxDragon2• 8 years ago

You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...

But you can't. It would not only cost money to, but it is also time gated, and once that gate closes you can't open it back up. No new account can have a John Wick skin because it requires buying something no longer for sale and then completing challenges that are no longer part of the game.

wyldfire• 8 years ago

I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates.

But Sony's response says "We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices". It seems like consoles in their target market are specifically excluded for portability here.

developer122• 8 years ago

I think its insane how many comments are trying to deflect from the issue. Sony can and should allow users to bring their accounts and purchases with them to and from their platform.

It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms. I can purchase skins on PC and use them on PS4. So that blows up the legal argument.

This feels like a weird distortion because its gaming related. For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales. We would be roasting Apple right now if they were locking it down like Sony is.

fixmycode• 8 years ago

It's weirder than that, you aren't really paying for the items directly from Sony's platform when you play on the PS4, you're buying V-bucks, Fortnite's currency, and that's what you use to buy your items.

For one, the solution should be keeping two different V-Buck wallets: one for Sony, and another for everyone else, legal issue solved, moving on. So, because it's not happening, there must be something we're missing here...

reificator• 8 years ago

You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...

My understanding, having not played Fortnite:

* Some skins (like John Wick) are time-limited and purchase-limited and achievement-limited. In other words you have to purchase the Battle Pass for a given season and complete all the challenges before the time runs out. John Wick skins are past that window, nothing can be done about them now.

* Other skins are just time and money limited. I'm told that you can log in and there will be only a single skin for sale.

But really, discussing whether it's a big deal[0] is missing what's important here. Neither Sony nor Epic adequately warned players that this would happen. That's the meat of the issue right there.

Again, I've not played Fortnite, only seen it in the Epic launcher when I dust off Unreal Engine 4.

[0]: Do I really need to say it is a big deal that players who poured money into their account are now being told to start from scratch?

PurpleBoxDragon2• 8 years ago

It seems that Epic is partially to blame for this. If they just required PS4 accounts only for PS4 it would cause far less problem for people. Epic could also allow the transfer of all unlocked items and such between accounts, but chooses not to because they benefit from people being forced to buy it a second time as well. That Epic would have to implement this functionality is the fault of Sony, but that they implement it in the way they current do is the fault of Epic, and so consumers should be mad at both Epic and Sony.

ktosobcy• 8 years ago

For that very reason I refuse to buy Sony products. For ages they forced they (incompatible, proprietary, overpriced memory cards) and PS is sooo locked that it doesn't make sense to invest (even if they have exclusive titles)

dawnerd2• 8 years ago

I don't really see how Epic can't fix this. Are they deleting your account on their servers when switching to Sony? Seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing to do.

esrauch2• 8 years ago

They probably are contractually bound to have this behavior with Sony in exchange for promotion or cash. It doesn't benefit Epic in any way and it benefits Sony a lot.

tehwebguy• 8 years ago

Holy shit, now I’m pissed. Been playing this on PS4 & pretty beyond annoyed to learn that stepping foot inside their garden is having effects outside of it.

I think Epic should pull a power move while they have the most popular game in the world and pull it from Sony with no notice.

dogma11382• 8 years ago

If you can file a complaint, a few of my friends already filed a complaint with their local EU anti-trust and consumer protection agencies.

As you said they were quite annoyed that an account that they’ve spent a lot of time and also money on is now essentially locked out and irreversibly so without any warning or consent.

setgree2• 8 years ago

Is it fair to say that corporate self-image concerns seems to drive a lot of the behavior of game companies above and beyond market considerations? I feel like I am often scratching my head at things like this on Sony's or Nintendo's or Microsoft's behalf. For instance, 'The Last of Us' -- supposed to be a great game, can't play it because it's PS3/PS4 only, not going to buy a console just for this one game, it's 5 years old, would seem like a good candidate for a PC port. And yet, no dice.

(Many if not most of the decisions Nintendo made in the 2000s, particularly around internet gameplay for the gamecube, were equally confusing.)

codegoblins2• 8 years ago

The Last of Us is a game created by Naughty Dog, which is a studio that Sony owns. Exclusives like that drive sales of consoles. If you really want to play it without buying a console, you can use the PS Games-Streaming-as-a-service PS Now and play it from your PC. https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/explore/playstation-now/ps...

setgree2• 8 years ago

wow, big thanks for this, I didn't know about it. I chose a bad example then. I could summon others about the big 3's erratic behavior but anyway...I learned something valuable here, thanks.

notyourwork• 8 years ago

The reasons for doing this are great and benefit users but I fear this is the death of the console era. The idea of having different consoles with different hardware and playing people with the same setup is what made consoles unique from PC gaming. In PC gaming you have a standard operating system and you could use a joystick, keyboard, mouse, whatever you want with your setup.

If all consoles inter-operate we have come full circle and are simply gaming against other PC gamers.

earenndil• 8 years ago

I thought it was because consoles had games that pc did not, and once you had the console, it was convenient to play on it other games as well, even if they were also available on pc?

djhworld• 8 years ago

It makes sense though.

Microsoft already sense this (and have done for a few years now), most of their 1st party titles for XboxOne can also be played on Windows. Going forward it sounds like they want to further employ this strategy to essentially make the Microsoft ecosystem the place to play games whether that be via a console (with its plug and play ease) or on Windows, or streamed to a mobile phone or tablet.

Nintendo are the outlier here though, but it will be interesting to see where Sony is positioning themselves in 5 or so years

basgys• 8 years ago

Sony's decision to lock Fortnite accounts on their platform seems to be in direct violation of the GDRP "data portability" law.

the data subject shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible.

Cross-play is a different story though.

makecheck• 8 years ago

I see this as the same issue I have with any other Internet platform right now, gaming or not: the relationship is completely backwards. Rather than services referencing your data, for some cryptographically-secure owned-by-you data store, you give them things to store that are entirely outside your control.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, data is typically really expensive (time-wise at the very least) to create. It takes years to build up gaming history, social network points, comment histories and bookmarks, etc. Instead of that being irrevocably yours, instead you’re just one forgotten password or inept cloud provider mistake away from permanently losing the results of years of effort.

Nintendo and Microsoft team up to promote cross-play, while Sony remains silent

Related Stories