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
Related Stories
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.
Bethesda Declares War on Sony Over Cross-Play Limitations
Cross-play has become a major issue over the past few months as prominent games like Fortnite have been sandboxed on the PlayStation 4. As more games proliferate across the Switch, Xbox One, and PC, Sony continues to be the last holdout, simply because there's no pressing reason why the company should do things any differently. But pressure from companies like Bethesda could force it to rethink that stance. In a recent interview with , Pete Hines, Bethesda's senior VP of global marketing, discussed the upcoming console version of the Elder Scrolls Legends, a free-to-play card game set within the Elder Scrolls universe. Here's what Hines had to say:
[The Elder Scrolls Legends] is a strategy card game that encompasses both single and multiplayer...It is both cross-platform play and cross-platform progress. It is our intention in order for the game to come out, it has to be those things on any system. We cannot have a game that works one way across everywhere else except for on this one thing. The way the game works right now on Apple, Google, Steam, and Bethesda.net, it doesn't matter where you buy your stuff, if you play it on another platform that stuff is there. It doesn't matter what platform you play on, you play against everyone else who is playing at that moment. There's no 'Oh, it's easier to control, or it has a better framerate on this system.' It's a strategy card game. It doesn't matter.
When asked if Bethesda actually intended to fight Sony on this issue, Hines replied: "We continue to talk to all of our platform partners," Hines added. "But those [terms] are essentially non-negotiable. We can't be talking about one version of Legends, where you take your progress with you, and another version where you stay within that ecosystem or its walled off from everything else. That is counter to what the game has been about."
Separately, Why Bethesda changed its review policy:
(Score: 4, Touché) by Snotnose on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:36PM (7 children)
On the one hand, this is Sony being assholes.
On the other hand, PC players will always crush console players just because a keyboard/mouse combo is a hella lot better than thumbsticks. I say that as a long time PC gamer who has been relegated to a PS3 for the past several years.
Give the player a menu option that lets them select which platforms they're willing to compete against. I'll put my mad skillz against Xbox players anytime, but keep those PC players the hell away from me.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:19PM
The consoles support KBM now.
Fortnite is adding KBM lobbies, so if that's how you're playing (consoles or PC) you're only playing against other KBM players and not steamrolling some kid on a game pad.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:22PM (2 children)
I remember the time when Unreal Tournament got big, and I was so ignorant that I unironically suggested that it would be better to play with a joystick than a mouse and keyboard. I was laughed out of the room. Babby's first Deus Ex with mouse and keyboard was a revelation, if not a bitch to get used to. Many keys were fatfingered during that painful period.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:58PM (1 child)
It goes both ways. There was a GTA game where you had bodies in the back of a dump truck and you had to back up to a lake and dump them in. On the PC I had a hell of a time, either the bodies got dumped too far away or the truck fell into the lake.
Replayed a few years later on a Playstation, it was ez peazy. I even re-did it a few times because the difficulty of that was burned into my mind.
But in a multiplayer twitchfest yeah, I'll take the keyboard/mouse any day.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday September 01 2018, @11:36PM
Console controls often have some form of auto-aim.
With the mouse, the games default sensitivity may be right for a different DPI mouse and require adjustment to have the intended difficulty. (the controls aren't force-standardized)
Though possibly that portion of the PC version wasn't play tested fully...
(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.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:27PM (7 children)
Kim Jong Un Says You Can't Leave North Korea Because North Korea is Best Korea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:42PM (4 children)
Pretty fucked up analogy there pal. If the PS4 had the processing power of a Colecovision, the comparison would probably work. Or are you saying North Korea a peaceful 1st world nation, to compare it to the alternatives.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:36PM (3 children)
Don't you love your country? North Korea is crappy because our esteemed leaders say it is crappy. That should be enough for you. They can say that because most of the sheep have not actually traveled there to see it with their own eyes. They would have you believe that people in NK/Syria/Iran/Whoever-they-say-is-the-enemy are less than human.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:50PM (2 children)
It has nothing to do with the fact that those countries are oppressive and/or war-torn. No, we would like to reiterate that all of the inhabitants are like cockroaches!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @12:27AM (1 child)
Those countries were doing okay until some ass-hat country came in and screwed things up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @04:28PM
uhh, those were democracy bombs!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:32PM (1 child)
Sarah Palin says East Korea is pretty good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @02:18AM
Can she see it from her front porch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:44PM
Sony had a chance to tell the truth - whatever that may be - and put this behind them. Instead they spewed out this "Sony is the best!" garbage and no one is buying that as the real reason.
Whatever the reason, even if it's "we only want our consoles to be able to multi-player with other Sony consoles", they should own up to it and let people decide based on their reasoning. But what do you expect from a company like Sony, the people who thought a rootkit was a great idea.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday September 01 2018, @08:31PM
That in no way answers the question. Is the data about player positions and actions somehow of a lower quality when it comes from an Xbox?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:08PM (2 children)
Haven't bought any of your crap since the rootkit scandal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:22PM
I bouggt their garbage used and never let it on the network. They gained nothing, im a rebel!!!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @01:07PM
This.