This article originally ran under a different banner/website in June of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! LIGHT YOUR TORCHES AND SHARPEN YOUR PITCHFORKS!!! WE ARE GOING AFTER SONY! After I praised them for quality over quantity presentation at E3, they go and pull a stunt like this. Sony you should ask EA how it feels to betray the Doomsayer. My praise is more easily lost than gained. This is something we should not take laying down. We cannot let Sony continue this injustice. I am referring to Sony’s attempt to hold their players hostage from their friends on the Microsoft and Nintendo platforms.
I am sure many of you heard of the E3 announcement of Epic Game’s Fortnite being immediately available to download to Switch owners. Many players raced to play the red-hot battle royale on their Switch, but were greeted with the now infamous error message: “LOGIN FAILED!!! This Fortnite account is associated with a platform that 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.” Fortnite players soon uncovered that their Fortnite accounts had been locked, without warning, to their PlayStation Network accounts. Decoupling their Epic Games and PlayStation account did not remedy the situation. The only creating a new Epic Games account will allow you to play Fortnite on Switch. Cries of outrage flooded through Sony’s social media. Now Sony’s response? “We are listening to feedback.” The same response Bungie gave Destiny 2 players when they lied about the experience points players gained. The same response EA told Battlefront 2 players when they called out the loot boxes. No Sony trots the same tired hallow excuse. A shocking move, but not a surprising one. May I remind everyone this isn’t the first time Sony resisted cross-platform play at the cost of lessening their player’s experience?
Flashback to E3 2017, Microsoft announces Xbox would have cross-platform play with not only the PC version of their games but also some other consoles as well. Microsoft proudly boasted that Rocket League would allow cross-platform play between the Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Playstation 4 Rocket League players patiently waited for the announcement for PS4 cross-platform play, but it never came. PS4 Rocket League players were stuck playing with a significantly low player count due to Sony’s desire to reject cross-platform play. To add more salt to the wound, Rocket League developer Psyonix, went on record saying all they need for cross-platform play with Rocket League was Sony’s approval. One could say they threw Sony under the bus, but since Psyonix has done all the work and with a push of a button, the PS4 could have Rocket League cross-platform play, I say fair play to Psyonix. Sony was still reluctant to oblige to the idea of Rocket League crossplay.
So why is Sony so against cross-platform play? Nintendo is on board with letting its players play with other consoles when historically they have ignored Microsoft and Sony. One could think it is out of its bitter rivalry with Microsoft, but the truth is even sadder. John Smedley, the former president of Sony Online Entertainment, has pulled back to the curtain to reveal who is pulling the strings, the fearful greed driven men at Sony:
“When I was at Sony, the stated reason internally for this was money,” he said in a Twitter post, “They didn’t like somebody buying something on Xbox and it being used on a Playstation. Simple as that. Dumb reason, but there it is.”
How utterly pathetic. It would seem Sony is not comfortable in their current position and would like to hold their player base and their Fortnite accounts hostage in hopes to forcibly keep Fortnite players on PS4. One can only assume, Sony thinks this will force non-PS4 player to buy a PS4 so they could play with their friends, but I believe this will have the opposite effect. I have seen many PS4 owners claiming they are done with PS4 and might pick up an Xbox One. Frankly, I can’t blame them as this move portrays Sony as lacking any confidence in the house the PS4 and its strong library has built.
For a while, I was against console exclusives. I felt it was anti-consumer to chain games to these bloated consoles, but after seeing companies like EA and Activision use multi-platform games to milk players dry, I started to have a change of heart. I noticed that console exclusive games do not carry predatory microtransactions games like Battlefront and Call of Duty carry. Instead, we got solid games freed from the live service taint like God of War or Super Mario Odyssey. With the price of admission being the one-time cost of the console, I found this offer very tempting especially as someone who primarily plays on PC. However, the ransoming of Epic Game accounts in the hope to sell a few more PS4s, has completely unsold me the idea of getting one. Much like when Sony tried to sell the PS3 for five hundred dollars, this denial of cross-platform play says to me Sony wants you to play their way or not play at all. With multiplayer-focused titles like Fallout 76, already reported not to have cross-platform play on the PS4, this is a move that, we as gamers, should not be standing for.
Many Sony activists have come out of the woodwork to defend the company’s actions. They cry SONY IS A BIG BOY THEY CAN RUN THEIR COMPANY HOWEVER THEY WANT. While my initial reaction would be to ask this mad man why he cares for a company that does not care for its customers and openly said get a second job to afford the PS3, I would point out Sony is not giving anything in return for not having cross-platform play. They have only denied you a service that you could have on any other platform. Making the experience on Playstation significantly lesser than the experience on PC, Xbox, or Switch, and Microsoft and Nintendo can smell the blood in the water. They have been cheekily messaging each other over Twitter, asking each other to play dates on Fortnite, Rocket League, and Minecraft. Moves that can only make an old doomsayer smile, because Sony wouldn’t be the laughing stock if they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot. Sony is forcing the old console war at a time Microsoft and Nintendo have already signed the peace treaty over a game of Minecraft. They are clearly stagnating in old habits, while Microsoft and Nintendo work to improve their formula. Frankly, if Sony doesn’t catch up with modern times, all I can say to them is the end is nigh. The end is certainly nigh Sony.