
Nintendo and Microsoft team up to promote cross-play, while Sony remains silent - mikece
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/21/17488530/nintendo-switch-microsoft-xbox-minecraft-cross-play-marketing-sony
======
lebrad
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.

~~~
madrox
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.

~~~
developer12
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.

~~~
madrox
> 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

They also don't allow you to purchase books within their ecosystem. On PC,
you're using Epic's payment platform. Same way you can pay for your kindle
books on the web in Amazon's ecosystem and then read them on an iPad.

My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles, when followed lazily, can
lead to anti-consumer practices. I don't think it's deflecting from the issue
to discuss the underlying technical and legal constraints. It's Hacker News.
If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.

~~~
developer12
> On PC, you're using Epic's payment platform.

I don't see how this is different from Xbox/iOS/PC/Switch all sharing digital
purchases. Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?

> My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles

I don't think their are any technical challenges unless you insist digital
licenses must be sandboxed. Epic has accidentally removed the technical blocks
previously.

> It's Hacker News. If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-
> play go to Polygon.

I'm sorry if it feels like I'm raging but I strongly believe users need to
fight for fair digital licensing. Sandboxing purchases feels like a fine
technical workaround but I'd prefer platform owners change policy to match
users expectations.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
> Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?

Not all companies "move fast and break things" in legal matters. We don't know
the full circumstances, but Sony may have evaluated the landscape and decided
the liabilities weren't worth the potential profits, while Nintendo and
Microsoft looked at the landscape and decided that the profits exceeded the
liabilities in this case.

It's for the same reason that you find Wells Fargo or Facebook committing
transgressions that other banks or social media sites may avoid.

------
balls187
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
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.

~~~
jsheard
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.

~~~
jackewiehose
Do you get a warning when you link your account with Sony?

Why are accounts linked to a console at all? That has nothing to do with
cross-play...

~~~
metasaval
No, there is no warning when you link your Epic account to your Sony account,
as far as I know.

As for why accounts are linked to a console, linking your account means you
can have the same friend list across platforms, which makes it easier to play
with your friends no matter where you're playing. Also, and maybe more
importantly, you have access to all of your cosmetics across platforms.

------
VectorLock
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.

~~~
ageitgey
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.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
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.

~~~
metasaval
I don't fully agree that Microsoft would be doing this if they were dominant.
Maybe under Mattrick, but Phil Spencer has been making a lot of right calls
since becoming head of XBoX, like bringing all their games day 1 to PC and
going all-in on backwards compatibility for their 360 and OG XBoX titles. Even
their adaptive controller is cool, even if I'm not someone who would use it. I
recommend watching his interviews with Jeff from Giant Bomb that he's done
every year at E3 to get an idea of his views when it comes to this stuff:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70z2jtcQf4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70z2jtcQf4s)

Companies change all the time, though. The next head of XBoX could go back to
the Mattrick days and completely burn all the good will they have. But, as
long as Phil and Nadella are around, I don't think they'll be blocking cross-
play anytime soon, even if they do become the dominant platform.

~~~
buzer
I wouldn't be so sure. There has been some talks about bringing Final Fantasy
XIV to Xbox & Switch for quite a while, but the condition for that from FFXIV
side is cross-platform play like the case is already with PC & PS4 (and
previously PS3, latest expansion dropped PS3 support). From sounds of it
Nintendo and Microsoft had some issues regarding that.

[https://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-
fantasy-14-director-...](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-
fantasy-14-director-wants-switch-and-xbox-on/1100-6451129/)

~~~
metasaval
That's not what I understood from the article you linked. It sounds like the
issue mainly stems from uncertainty on whether Square Enix would be able to
push a patch out and have it reach all of their player's across platforms at
the same time. But Yoshida never points fingers on which of the three is to
blame (my guess is Nintendo, they're online infrastructure has never been
great).

"One of the issues Yoshida noted, however, was that many companies don't
consider how updates to the way online services are operated and regulated can
impact an MMORPG.

"Those can become a hurdle when we consider operating FFXIV for an extended
period of time," he said. "So when I talk to those first-party companies, I
ask them, 'Do you have the capability to prepare for that, do you have the
resolve that you're going to make sure to take responsibility and take care of
those, do you have that willingness?'

"If we are able to come to some sort of agreement, a handshake so to speak, or
if it does end up being that unfortunately we can't do a handshake with Final
Fantasy XIV, either way we'll make sure to communicate with our players. But
we have been tenacious--we've been trying to keep at it and be persistent
about our conversations.""

Considering that cross-play between Microsoft, Nintendo, and PC is supported
for multiple games now (Rocket League, Minecraft, and Fortnite), I think it's
safe to say that Sony's the one holding back cross-play as a whole. As in to
say, even if the above issues were fixed, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony said
no anyway.

------
niftich
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.

~~~
metasaval
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...](https://kotaku.com/epic-accidentally-allows-xbox-and-ps4-cross-
play-on-for-1818518611)

~~~
cfadvan
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.

~~~
metasaval
A few reasons:

1\. Because it gets people on their system, who will then buy more games when
the fad does eventually die out (which let's be clear won't be anytime soon).
If someone playing Fortnite on PC asks their XBoX friends to download and play
with them, now a bridge has been formed between the Fortnite only PC player
and the XBoX player. It's only a few conversations away from "Hey, I got a 4K
TV, let me get an XBoX so that I can keep playing Fortnite and all these other
games with my friends."

2\. Because it garners good will. Within the last few years, more and more
companies are realizing that doing good by the consumer can still be
profitable. Sony's the dominant platform now, but that can change within a
year. If Microsoft is over here saying that their games are going to be
backwards compatible forever and the consumer knows, through history, that
Microsoft allows you to play with your friends no matter where they play,
that's a substantial incentive to get the next XBoX over the next Playstation.

3\. Because, and this is the simplest reason, why not? The work is already
done, all Epic has to do is flip the switch. It requires no extra work on
Sony's end, just willingness to allow their console to talk to other consoles.
The way this is going, this is going to be net profit negative in the long
run, with more people jumping to XBoX if they know Microsoft plays well with
others.

------
jetti
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
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!

------
basgys
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.

------
smaili
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](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44477524)

~~~
Someone1234
That's a response that lacks a response. They don't address Switch or XBox
cross-play.

~~~
tyfon
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.

------
makecheck
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.

------
setgree
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.)

~~~
codegoblins
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...](https://www.playstation.com/en-
gb/explore/playstation-now/ps-now-games/)

~~~
setgree
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.

------
overcast
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.

~~~
wilsonnb2
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.

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

~~~
yifanl
As a fairly on-and-off gamer, I can't really name any exclusive IPs from Sony.

I know Microsoft has Halo, and Nintendo has enough exclusives to make Smash
Bros.

I vaguely recall Sony making their own Smash Bros a few years back, but none
of the IPs featured in it have had any recent entries, nor are really that
prominent.

~~~
jamesgeck0
While none of them are as popular as Nintendo's main series, Sony does have
rather a lot of notable exclusive IP. LittleBigPlanet, Bloodborne, Uncharted,
Ratchet & Clank, Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, The Last of Us, Gravity Rush,
PaRappa the Rapper, etc.

Halo is popular, but Sony has a much larger portfolio of exclusive IP than
Microsoft does right now.

------
mtgx
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".

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

------
protoster
Very much relevant: [https://xkcd.com/743/](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
Shiny exclusives? That's Nintendo's specialty.

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

~~~
protoster
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

------
shmerl
They should start promoting Vulkan for developers.

~~~
canardlaquay
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'.

~~~
shmerl
_> 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...](https://www.khronos.org/conformance/adopters/conformant-
products#submission_310)

~~~
pjmlp
Yeah they do, yet is used as much as GL ES 1.0 was on the PS3.

Most Switch games are done in Unity, Unreal, Crysis and a couple of other
lesser known middleware engines, taking advantage of NVN.

~~~
shmerl
I suppose they might use NVM to interface with Nintendo specific hardware,
they don't need it for graphics. So if engine developers are smart, they
minimize NVM usage to only those corner cases, since there is no need to
reinvent the wheel and duplicate work.

 _> yet is used as much as GL ES 1.0 was on the PS3. _

Any Vulkan based engine can use it. Wasn't there Doom release for Switch?

~~~
pjmlp
One game among 1165 available titles.

Khronos keeps trying to advocate game developers to adopt Vulkan.

Meanwhile everyone already added DX12, Metal, NVN and LibCGNM to their
engines.

Here for your education about game developer culture, Unreal demo at WWDC
2018, and the community live stream done afterwards.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S48T-cOG0ks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S48T-cOG0ks)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdhzavPtUms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdhzavPtUms)

~~~
shmerl
One that shows proper example, but there can be more, especially if they
aren't exclusives. There is no point for developers to waste time.

~~~
pjmlp
Funny how the whole industry contradicts what you think is so valuable.

~~~
shmerl
No industry likes wasting money which you insist it should do, by duplicating
work pointlessly.

 _> Khronos keeps trying to advocate game developers to adopt Vulkan_

And you don't like that, since you are a big fan of lock-in apparently.

~~~
pjmlp
Contrary to you I had the privilege to know the industry from inside a couple
of years ago, was an IGDA member, still have some contacts there.

I am a big fan of games worthwhile playing and the related IP produced from
them, regardless of the tools used to produce them.

------
notyourwork
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.

~~~
djhworld
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

------
post_break
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
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_break
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.

------
padobson
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.

~~~
ageitgey
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
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.

------
floatingatoll
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.)

~~~
eropple
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.

~~~
floatingatoll
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.

