SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the Damn-right-its-better-than-yours,-I-can-teach-you,-But-I-have-to-charge dept.
CNET:
Sony doesn't want you to play with your Xbox or Switch friends, I argued last June. We've known since 2016 that Sony is the only company standing in the way of buddies being able to team up across PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, since there's no technological limitation.
And though Sony has since been shown up by Microsoft and Nintendo, and though Sony enraged the Fortnite community, and though Fallout developer Bethesda has badmouthed Sony about cross-play and threatened to hold another game hostage, and even though PlayStation America CEO Shawn Layden suggested Sony might have actually gotten the message...
...today, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida reportedly told the press that his company generally doesn't believe in the idea of opening up the PlayStation to cross-platform multiplayer.
"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," he said, according to The Independent.
Previously: Sony Faces Growing 'Fortnite' Backlash At E3
Bethesda Clashes With Sony on PS4 Cross-Play, Changes Review Policy
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Sunday September 02 2018, @02:52PM (2 children)
This isn't a Sony problem, it's a capitalism problem. I guarantee if the biggest player in consoles was Nintendo or Microsoft/Xbox, that company would be the one blocking cross-play and Sony and the other one would support it.
When Windows dominated the desktop and IE was the king of browsers, Microsoft had zero interest in cross-platform APIs, other operating systems, and web standards. When enough of the industry stopped using .NET and Windows Server and IE that "Microsoft or nothing" meant "nothing", they suddenly found love for cross-platform .NET and web standards and Linux servers. Android was a good attempt at all-open-all-the-time in the beginning, but now that it's an industry juggernaut Google got busy locking it down: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ [arstechnica.com] Intel started charging PC vendors extra money for Intel parts if the vendors sold any product with AMD parts in the early 2000s, and between that and some of AMD's own missteps it almost killed AMD. AMD could have recovered from its mistakes faster if Intel hadn't pulled that trick. Intel stopped charging PC vendors extra for Intel parts if the vendor sold AMD parts once AMD was crippled - and I imagine Intel is kicking around the idea of recreating that kind of pricing policy now that AMD is back on its feet. Oracle hated all other databases until they realized it would kill them, and then they bought MySQL and suddenly fell in love with it.
When you're the dominant player in an industry, you're "All walled garden, all the time!" When you're not, it's "Rah rah rah open standards!"
The only thing worse is industries like television service. There is no single dominant player, but they have an unspoken (or concealed) industry-wide agreement to play games with pricing. Because no matter if it's Time Warner, AT&T/DirecTV, Verizon, Comcast, or Dish the price you see is not the price you pay. You'll get $15-$40 in extra fees. The only right solution is to ditch paid television service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @04:23PM (1 child)
i agree that this is related to slaveware peddlers, but i don't think it's exclusive to capitalism as much as a closed business model, even if there are norms of what types of economic systems use what type of business models.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Monday September 03 2018, @02:19PM
While that might be true, I think the important point is that the game is designed to make the players do this. Screaming at Sony for this is as pointless as yelling at a linebacker for sacking the quarterback - he's just doing his assigned job.
I don't think it's practical for the government to mandate open standards and federation everywhere, so I'm not asking for it. But for us, ourselves, and our friends we should have two rules to follow:
1. When it's practical, adopt the open source solution to your IT problems. The more open source, the better.
2. When that's not practical, be especially skeptical of the offerings from the biggest player in the market. Usually the lock-in that comes with their product has costs that outweigh the benefits of having one of the best products.