While we love and cover all platforms here at SG, there are times when anti-consumer policies from gaming companies leave us scratching our head. The situation ocurring with Sony and players’ PS4 Fortnite accounts right now, is certainly one of them. If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s the jist:
Fortnite released on the Nintendo Switch earlier this week as part of the announcements from Nintendo’s E3 Direct presentation. As with others games like Minecraft, Rocket League, etc…Nintendo and Microsoft are allowing cross-play between PCs and consoles along with cross-progression in many cases. However, Sony continues to refuse to do so. Relative to Fortnite, players have thus found that if you play on PS4 primarily and have tried to log into Fortnite on the Switch with your account, the login fails. In short, if you play Fortnite on the PS4, your account is only good on the PS4. Meanwhile, all other players can use their account on multiple platforms without issue.
Given Fortnite’s tremendous popularity right now, this is proving to be a media nightmare for Sony with even some of the the most staunch PlayStation voices speaking out on the matter like Greg Miller.
Sadly, Sony chose not to respond to the issue over the past few days. And while we now have an official response from them, it’s certainly not what fans were looking for. In fact, it’s worse as all Sony did was take the time to tout PlayStation 4 sales numbers which is nothing more than a slap in the face to players.
”We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. Fortnite is already a huge hit with PS4 fans, offering a true free-to-play experience so gamers can jump in and play online. With 79 million PS4s sold around the world and 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.”
Our Take
To put it bluntly, this is ridiculous. Sadly, it seems with the success of the PS4, Sony is losing sight of what really matters in this industry. And as we’ve seen several times in the past, arrogance always leads to a stiff reminder down the line. We hope Sony changes their tune on not only Fortnite, but their entire approach to supporting gamers on all platforms. The PlayStation brand is beloved but at this point of time in the industry, they are being incredibly short sighted.
