Sony has finally announced that they would be enabling cross-play for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players really soon.
Sony has been ridiculed for the past few months for being unsupportive of the whole cross-play situation. And with the advent of Fortnite and its cross-play capabilities, Sony was simply ridiculed when they refused to enable crossplay for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players. It didn’t end there. Players who had logged in or linked their Epic Games account on a PlayStation 4 weren’t able to access their skins or even their account on another platform which obviously led to a ton of backlash only to be fumed by Sony saying “PlayStation is the best place to play”.
Both Microsoft and Nintendo partnered with each another and even went as far to taunt Sony for blocking crossplay with a Minecraft trailer.
In an update blog, recently, it seems the folks over at Sony have changed their minds and are willing to finally enable cross-play for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players. The article added they are willing to enable cross-play for all of the platforms. Given that the PC players had to no issue queuing up with PlayStation 4 players, it didn’t seem to be a major issue there. In their blog post, they said they are willing to make a few policy changes to in their company and are willing to work in the right direction.
For 24 years, we have strived to deliver the best gaming experience to our fans by providing a uniquely PlayStation perspective. Today, the communities around some games have evolved to the point where cross-platform experiences add significant value to players. In recognition of this, we have completed a thorough analysis of the business mechanics required to ensure that the PlayStation experience for our users remains intact today, and in the future, as we look to open up the platform.
This represents a major policy change for SIE, and we are now in the planning process across the organization to support this change. We will update the community once we have more details to share, including more specifics regarding the beta timeframe, and what this means for other titles going forward.
While the move may have come in late, it’s definitely a welcome breeze from the folks over at Sony and especially a fresh breeze of air for players who were aching to queue with their family members and friends for a while but were restricted simply because of their platform. Definitely a sweet move.
With the announcement of a cross-play beta for Fortnite, Sony is willing to put in the time and effort to optimize the social and technical aspects of cross-play with hopes of optimizing the final gameplay experience between the platforms.
Whether Sony is limiting this policy change exclusively for Fortnite is what we should be looking out for. By the initial looks of it, it doesn’t seem to be the case overall. Definitely looking forward to this update and beta.
