Xbox Chief Mike Ybarra Blasts Sony's Killjoy Blocking Of Fortnite PS4 CrossPlay
Sony has not exactly been a champion of supporting multiplayer gameplay across different platforms, otherwise known as crossplay. If there was a time and place to reverse course, it would be now, in Fortnite, the world's most popular battle royale shooter. Sony is sticking to its guns, however, drawing ire from not just gamers, but also Microsoft.
Fortnite is a veritable cash cow for developer Epic Games, and part of the game's success is its availability on so many different platforms—PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android. And for the most part, players on one platform can play against people on another platform. That is, expect for PlayStation 4 owners, who can only play against other PS4 owners.
"On cross-platform, our way of thinking is always that PlayStation is the best place to play," Sony's new chief executive officer Kenichiro Yoshido recently said, according to Independent. "Fortnite, I believe, partnered with PlayStation 4 is the best experience for users, that's our belief."
It's an absurd excuse, that somehow forcing people with friends who own a PS4 to also purchase a PS4 for crossplay is somehow in their best interest. As one former Sony executive put it, the stance essentially boils down to a dumb money grab. It's also drawn the attention of rival execs, namely Microsoft Xbox boss Mike Ybarra.
"[Sony] still isn't listening to gamers. All games should be crossplay and progression with the right input flexibility and gamer options," Ybarra wrote on Twitter, in reference to Sony's lack of crossplay support in Fortnite.
Make no mistake, Sony's hesitation to support crossplay in Fornite is not rooted in some kind of technical limitation. Yoshida essentially confirmed as much, noting that Sony picks and chooses when to support crossplay, based on this mystery metric of user experience.
"But actually, we already opened some games as cross-platform with PC and some others, so we decide base on what is the best user experience. That is our way of thinking for cross-platform," Yoshida added.
It seems clear that Sony is financially motivated. Does the company have a point? After all, the PS4 has more cumulative sales than the Xbox One. Ybarra addressed this when it was brought up as a comment to his above Twitter post. Here's the exchange:
Twitter user Hero: Lol he's wrong but can you really blame him... as far as a business standpoint, they've been beating Xbox for years now.
Mike Ybarra: We run Windows and Console. Larger gaming audience who wants to play together. Gaming is diverse, if you only serve to bring joy to part of an audience then you are behind in many, many ways.
The situation stinks, though as was also pointed out in the Twitter thread, there is room to criticize Microsoft as well. Specifically, Microsoft's subscription Xbox Live service is viewed as a 'paywall' to multiplayer (and by extension, crossplay) by some users.
