Cognition Dissemination: What’s with Sony and Cross-play Features?

Cross-play features have become important for video games with online play to have in recent years. It’s the ability for players of specific games to play with all others online regardless of which competing platform they’re using. It used to be customary for video game online ecosystems to be locked to one platform, so players needed to own the game on the same platform to play each other. But after a while, the question of why this needed to be the case started being asked more.

There were several cases where friends wanted to play with each other in the same game during the last console generation, but couldn’t because they owned the title on different platforms. It was accepted as the way things were within a competitive industry, but that’s slowly no longer becoming the case.

The importance of cross-play especially applies for indie games released across three or more platforms. It’s also important for games released on platforms where players fear there won’t be enough competition among those who purchased the game on it. It’s great how this has become more commonplace, as it benefits everyone outside some corporate bigwigs. And wouldn’t you know it, one company full of bigwigs is hindering its full potential: Sony. It’s recently started to blow up in their faces.

Sony’s finicky relationship with cross-play has existed for a while. It became noticeable when Microsoft announced that all Minecraft players could play with each other on any set-top platform… except PlayStation 4. After being asked, they defended the practice by saying they had to “be mindful of [their] responsibility to [their] install base,” whatever that means. Sony has been harshly criticized over the issue, including through this ad from Nintendo where the PS4 is left out. The issue manifested again with Rocket League, where developer Psyonix Studios announced that cross-play between the Xbox One, Switch, and PC, versions will be coming sometime this summer, with PS4 left out again.

The issue recently hit a fever pitch with Fortnite when it released on Switch during E3 2018 last month. This is only partly due to how it inherits the issue of the title having cross-play with every other version except the PS4 iteration. But there was a far more unwelcome surprise for others who downloaded the game: Those who started accounts on the PS4 version can’t migrate their accounts to the system. This was no issue for anyone who started accounts on non-Switch versions, where users have also been free to switch between two or more versions, to play one at home and the other one while away from the TV or monitor.

Sony’s pitiful response to the fiasco didn’t help matters. Their statement highlighted how great of a free-to-play experience the game is, and patted themselves on the back for selling 79 million PS4s capable of playing the game. They also highlighted how it allows for cross-play with the PC and mobile versions. The canned PR statement that didn’t come close to addressing the issue at hand, and sure made it sound like the “arrogant Sony” from the mid-00s era (during the transition between the PS2 and PS3) was back.

And just in case anyone thought this cross-play drama would be ending anytime soon: Bethesda Softworks’ Todd Howard popped up to say that online game Fallout 76 won’t have cross-play because “Sony is not as helpful as everyone would like.”  This is pretty ridiculous.

With all this resistance, you might be wondering why Sony hasn’t switched course on having their ecosystem be a walled garden in terms of playing with other consoles (though not PC and mobile). There’s an easy answer for that: Money. This was explained by former Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley in a now-deleted tweet, who said “[Sony] didn’t like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on a PlayStation.” They’d much rather have everyone purchase games and play them on PlayStation systems, and given that PS4 is number one worldwide, they know the version on their system will be the most desirable.

Sony should give this a rest before they get too carried away. But that’s unlikely to happen until they start suffering from serious pecuniary consequences, but the PS4’s superlative sales suggest that won’t be happening for the remainder of this console generation. The trend of the market leader always doing something stupid continues unabated.

Microsoft confirmed at E3 that they aren’t getting out of the video game console market just yet, despite speculation to the contrary. They’re going to treat the next console generation as a fresh start for them, and will make sure not to make the same mistakes that hindered them early on with the Xbox One; you know, after they were the market leader (in most countries) with the Xbox 360. The acquirement of five development studios shows how they’re preparing to compete with Sony on the first-party software front, and they could start the next generation with a flurry of good games. Sony better not have their heads to far up their asses, or they could find themselves in second place again.