Maybe I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but I still can’t get over Sony’s stance on cross-play. With even Nintendo showing you up on the matter, you’d think any company would be falling over itself to enable the feature. Sadly, Sony hasn’t come down to reality and is now spouting gibberish about why Fortnite on PS4 doesn’t allow for play with different networks.
Speaking to Independent at the IFA Technology Show this weekend, Sony Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida said, “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.” Yoshida then clarified that some titles do have PC crossplay and that Sony decides what is the “best user experience” on a per game basis.
Somehow this spun into talking about competition, with Yoshida stating, “I think competition is always good. Healthy, fair competition is always good for the industry and growth. I think competition with Nintendo and Xbox is a healthy situation.” I’m not sure what cross-play has to do with competition, but I guess it is nice to know how Sony views its rivals.
Really, though, this just comes off as generic PR speak. Sony obviously isn’t going to come out and say, “We forbid cross-play because our install base is so massive,” but the holier than thou answer doesn’t make me understand the decision any better. We’re talking about a game that had 125 million active players just a few months ago and has likely amassed many more. Separating that fanbase based on the console you bought is just dumb. It also doubly doesn’t make sense as enabling the feature might get more people on PS4 since they won’t be arbitrarily locked out from playing with their friends.
I suppose the only thing we can do is hope that Sony eventually sees the error of its ways. With sales figures for the PS4 not slowing down, that doesn’t seem likely.
Fortnite on PlayStation doesn’t have cross-platform play with other consoles because they are worse, explains Sony boss [Independent]
Source: Destructoid Fortnite on PS4 won’t get cross-play because ‘PlayStation is the best place to play’