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Sony chiefs are under pressure to respond to complaints about "cross-play" restrictions imposed on Fortnite. Gamers have discovered that if they had first played the title on a PlayStation console, they are unable to use the same Fortnite account with the newly released Nintendo Switch edition. This prevents them from being able to make use of outfits and other in-game purchases and rewards they had accrued.
There is no such limitation when moving between the Xbox One and Switch. Gamers were already unable to share a Fortnite account between Microsoft and Sony's platforms. But the appeal of the Switch is that its portable nature allows owners to play when away from home, and so many have bought it as a second games machine.
Sony has yet to confirm it is responsible for the constraint, but it issued the following statement to the BBC.
"We're always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience," it said.
"With... 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."
[...] Sony has faced criticism for blocking cross-play in other titles in the past, including Minecraft and Rocket League. But the sheer scale of Fortnite's success means the backlash has the potential to be more damaging this time round.
Epic said this week that the title has amassed 125 million players worldwide.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:10PM (10 children)
So you bought a same for, what, $70. Then you bought it again because you are a sucker/idiot. Now your sad that you can't move your magic cape from one account to another?
Get a fucking life.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:19PM
The question is, is this losing the game company money because people aren't going to (re)buy as many hats out of protest, or does it make them more money if they buy the hats twice?
Obviously the easiest way to get the suits to care about a problem is to show them how the problem is preventing them from making *more* money.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:11PM (4 children)
Gee if only every consumer problem were treated with such disdain then we would truly be free to make a golden society!
Go fuck yourself arrogant dipshit! Don't worry, I don't own any hats or similar DLC but I can still see you're being a douche.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:34PM (3 children)
Yea, I'm being a douche. But seriously, what do you expect?
If you buy $app from Apple's store, do you expect anything from the Android store?
Consoles are walled gardens. If you buy one, expect to run into walls. Don't cry & whine about it. You /CHOSE/ that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:16PM
Yeah, I really have no sympathy for people who actively support companies that produce this locked-down proprietary trash. Don't support products that don't respect your freedoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @12:23AM
If you buy the same app on the two platforms, you can normally transfer your data between them. Both apps sync to your cloud-based account from the app developer. The same thing could have happened on the consoles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @05:10PM
With the sex life you write about, it seems you're all about removing barriers.
Nagging to get the behaviors to improve and try new things works well in many contexts, yours included.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:52PM (1 child)
It's free on the Switch. And yes, people are annoyed that, seemingly for no other reason than "Sony," they don't have the same freedoms others have when it comes to moving their account between systems.
Look, no-one's saying this is more important than peace with North Korea or ridding the world of plastic waste. But not everything that people hold dear has to be important.
It was important to you, after all, to comment about how unimportant you think this all is.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by mth on Friday June 15 2018, @12:46AM
From what I've heard about it, this is worse than just a lack of cross-play: as soon as a Fortnite account (managed by Epic, the game's creators, not Sony) has been used to play on a PS4, it is no longer possible to use that account on any other console. Sony gets the blame though because it's very likely Sony's policies forced Epic to add this restriction. Besides this restriction benefitting nobody except Sony, it was also not clearly communicated to players, who only found out about it after they couldn't log in to their Fortnite account from a Nintendo Switch.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Sourcery42 on Friday June 15 2018, @02:00PM (1 child)
Not quite in this case. It goes a little more like this.
My kids play this POS. It's free on consoles. I think it is free everywhere. Epic's whole business model seems to be tied to getting a large community with the free base game, and then profiting on some
gullible idiotsplayers with in-game purchases. The online battle royale is free, but you'll have to pay real world $ if you want special skins, items, emotes, etc. I could be wrong, but the purchased stuff all appears to be cosmetic with no impact to actual gameplay.Therein lies the rub here. The aforementioned
gullible idiotsplayers have already spent real world currency onbullshitskins and whatnot, and they'd like to take their in-game purchases to the same (free) game on another platform.Rootkits 'R UsSony being the profiteering dickheads they are can't help but shitting on their customers, and trying to lock them in to their platform.(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday June 15 2018, @02:35PM
It's essentially precisely as Sourcery says.
Players of F2P games (Free-to-play) are strangely more entitled and personally invested whenever they do drop money on the game, in my experience.