Nintendo Jabs Sony For Sabotaging Fortnite Cross-Play, Sony Issues Feckless Response
Sony's behavior is even more infuriating because progression and paid items cannot be transferred from the PlayStation 4 to the Nintendo Switch or Xbox One. Needless to say, Sony's unwillingness to lay down arms and join in the with everyone else in what is the most popular game in the world at the moment is leaving pretty much everyone in the industry scratching their heads.
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime decided to weigh in on the situation at E3, saying that his company has no problem with cross-play against competing console systems. In addition to confirming that Fortnite for the Switch has already been downloaded over 2 million time, Fils-Aime added, "We embrace working with a developer and enabling them to bring their vision to life and whether that's Fortnite, whether that's a number of the other games that have cross-platform play on our console, from a developer standpoint that's what we want. And we work hard with them to bring that to life.
"What competitors do is their decision to make. We believe being both developer-forward and fan-forward is in the best interest of the game."
Up until this point, Sony has been rather quiet about the whole situation. However, the company finally issued a statement, and quite predictably, it is puffing out its chest to proclaim how dominant the PlayStation 4 currently is on the console market:
We're always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. 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. We have nothing further to add beyond this at this point
The statement is rather curious, because Sony has obviously not listened to its customers regarding cross-play. This is witnessed by the company's refusal to enable cross-play not only with Fortnite, but also Rocket League (another popular online multiplayer game). And as some PlayStation 4 gamers have pointed out, their Fortnite loot and progression is basically being held hostage if they want to move to a different console platform, or simply game on the go (with the Nintendo Switch).
It's definitely an anti-gamer position from Sony, but time will tell how long the company can maintain this "stance of dominance" against Fortnite players that aren't going to back down. "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
