PS4 Cross-Play Restrictions Are All About Money, Says Ex-Sony Dev

It's Fortnite. Who cares?

If you want to play with the PS4, x-bone or switch players, just buy one already. That’s how a normal, rational human being would do. Being butthurt and rage talk about not being able to play with other console ain’t help. Like, did someone point a gun at your head and force you to buy a specific console when you’re choosing one? No, that decision is yours and yours alone. Learn to be responsible for what you did.

No way. Really? Nobody would guess so. What is this article for?

This is the guy who dared a hacker to hack his game server. They accepted the challenge. He was forced to resign. He might be just a tad bitter about it.

It is about money, but in another way. I don't think it's DLC sales because games where there aren't any aren't allowed to be cross play either. And they do allow cross play, just not with other consoles.

They don't want their players to play with people on other consoles for a number of reasons (giving up control of the online experience to competitors or third parties being one of them), but the chief reason is they want to sell more consoles.

The PS4 has doubled the sales of XB1 (estimated). If there's a group of 9 of you who want to play Destiny 2 together, and 3 of you have XB1s while the other 6 have PS4s, without cross play, either 6 of you will have to convince the 3 Xbox owners to buy a PS4, or the 3 Xbox owners will have to convince the 6 PS4 owners to buy an Xbox. Which do you think is more likely? Of course it's easier to convince 3 people to buy a console than 6. With this arrangement they stand to make 3 PS4 sales in your little circle of friends.

When cross play is enabled, they can all play together without anyone buying a new console. That's a loss of 3 potential hardware sales.

They're a business, and they're in it to make money. If they were behind and MS were in front, I'm pretty sure Sony would allow cross play. MS might not want to anymore though...

Phil offers cross play knowing that Sony is not going to accept it due to their market position. At worst he gets to look like the good guy and make Sony look like the bad guy, without actually having to do anything because he knows Sony will never accept the offer. If Sony lets them do it, Xbox owners get a much bigger pool of players to play multiplayer with when the servers start to look empty. It's a win-win for Phil in the game of politics.

I'm willing to bet Phil does not even bring up the topic if Xbox was outselling PS4 2-1 though.

How exactly do you "accidentally activate cross play"? Is that game just an app that can run on any hardware without any adjustments and what other platforms you can play with can be changed just through a switch at any time?

Still, that comment from Sony doesn't make much sense. And who knows if that's what their leaders really said. But if they were concerned that people could use dlc crap they bought on the Xbone on their console, then why not just forbid them from doing so? Well, probably because there'd be an outrage because then there'd be cross play but you have to buy that stupid digital hat again if I want to use it on a different platform? People quickly forget about the great new thing that's been added once they've found something new to complain about.

"We're always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience"

And then you proceed to throw the finger at the community, nice.

The people at Sony are so two faced and money hungry.

Just like with backwards compatibility, for years we wanted PS2 games and they said it wasn't possible and then it was found that the PS4 has a built in PS2 emulator that runs code from PCSX2.

Wonder how many more excuses we'll get with regards to crossplay and backwards compatibility.

Haha using a statement of an ex Sony employee against Sony, very credible!! If this was a court case, his words would be worth sh*t. The funny thing about cross-play is that Sony wanted it a few gens back even did some games with PC but Xbox never wanted it and all of a sudden, Xbox and Nintendo are pushing for it, why!? Is it because their install base is significantly smaller and by adding PlayStation install base it would make their multiplayer matchmaking quicker!? Just a guess

Sony is a b*tch

I love how Sony's statement basically translates as, "We have a sh*t-ton of consoles already running, why would you want to play with someone on another console?" Except if your buddy already has a Xbox One or a Switch and doesn't want to buy another expensive console, too bad for you. And they preface that by saying they want to hear what the gaming community wants. Yeah, right. This doesn't actually affect me at the moment, I don't play the game (yet), but I find some of these press statements hilarious.

Clearly sony isn't interested in what gamers want.

For the players my Ass.

Can someone in the game my media please wake up and ask how they are legally able to block a third party account or email address from ever being used on another consol? Especially without informing the user of the risks? How much is a class action lawsuit going to cost them if people start pushing back? Console makers have been threatened with legal action for doing far less than this.

You all keep talking about cross play. Who cares? This “issue” is already handled in that if I buy vbucks on the PS4 version, those vbucks are not available on mobile. Which means money spent on PS4 stays on PS4 until used. After that, who cares? After the puChase is made it shouldn’t make any difference to Sony. They already got the money. And since they are easily The biggest console right now, the chances of people spending all their money on other consoles instead of PS4 seems stupid and unlikely. But if this is how Sony wants to do it, fine. If I have to create a new account to play on switch, Nintendo will just get all my Fortnite money moving forward and Sony won’t see another dime. How will that work out for them if money is their real concern?