Minecraft, Rocket League, Fortnite, etc CrossPlay on every Platform but Sony because...

[Rangers]

I dont want crossplay with PC because that's where cheater/hackers live.

Playing in Destiny crucible on console, you never even have to dream cheating is a thing, minus some DDOS. That's nice.

Consoles though, have at it.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Well to be fair, even Spencer says he totally gets why they have made the choices they have.

I just think ever since Satya, they're okay with opening up the walled garden, which really started in windows, office, etc and even using Apple products at WWDC before we saw big moves in the gaming space to cross play/buy etc.

Perhaps in time Sony will come around if it benefits them which I think it could one day if there are really strong 3P MP titles to cross play in.

It's difficult to imagine a time when the more successful platform wouldn't wish to maintain its hold. Even a change to multiple platforms performing neck and neck would do little to assuage the case for not communicating with a rival network.

It makes sense that Nintendo, with its largely absent online presence, would be willing to communicate with XBL. It makes sense that Microsoft would seek to do the same with PSN, considering its much smaller userbase.

If, come the next generation, Nintendo have a functional online service with an established presence, and all three platforms sell similarly, I'm not convinced we'll even continue to see cross platform play between Nintendo and Microsoft.

 

[iroboto]

It's difficult to imagine a time when the more successful platform wouldn't wish to maintain its hold. Even a change to multiple platforms performing neck and neck would do little to assuage the case for not communicating with a rival network.

It makes sense that Nintendo, with its largely absent online presence, would be willing to communicate with XBL. It makes sense that Microsoft would seek to do the same with PSN, considering its much smaller userbase.

If, come the next generation, Nintendo have a functional online service with an established presence, and all three platforms sell similarly, I'm not convinced we'll even continue to see cross platform play between Nintendo and Microsoft.

When the model no longer works for your business is my counter response there. MS is a software and services company and have rapidly been breaking down all their walled gardens and have been profittint immensely because of it.

I don’t see this direction changing for them.

 

[iroboto]

This article sums on my thoughts on this one:
https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/21/1...cross-platform-nintendo-switch-microsoft-xbox

But outside of the terminology, it’s the last part of the description that has to stick in Sony’s craw: The use of the Microsoft account is what allows someone to give Microsoft money for in-game items, and then bring those items onto other platforms. Sony only gets a cut of the revenue if these purchases are made on its platform, which is why this is a topic it’s willing to be so stubborn about.

And this is likely what Sony is afraid of in the grand scheme of things. Imagine a world where game accounts move from hardware to hardware willy nilly, and purchases made on one platform were accessible everywhere. Where’s the profit for the platform holders? If you buy all your content for a free-to-play game on another platform and use that content on the PlayStation 4, the hardware just becomes a conduit through which you play games you paid for on other platforms.

Thus why because MS' model had changed, this is no longer an issue for them. Cross platform is their model and hardware has just been a conduit. MS will not care how you get into their ecosystem, just as long as you are. The move to streaming to any mobile device, the move to remove exclusives from Xbox and place them on Windows, the move to moving their software onto steam (some of it at least) are all moves in this direction.

MS profits from the infrastructure supporting the services and products. This is a business point that Sony isn't involved in. All these products and services that are cloud based have to run on something and MS is holding the backbone for them. As MS continues to make moves into the direction of cross play/cross buy, backwards compatibility support, on demand server spinning, cloud computation, streaming, faster content delivery, game pass, machine learning/AI/BI services, and more integration with other services - more companies will be willing to move their products and services onto MS servers instead of opting to run their own, or through amazon simply because of ease and support for these services.

This is perhaps the greatest point missed by those thinking crossplay/cross buy are only for the losers. MS will never turn point on this, because they are likely to profit more from cross play than to wall up. Walling up doesn't increase reach, and MS is now all about reach.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

MS profits from the infrastructure supporting the services and products. This is a business point that Sony isn't involved in. All these products and services that are cloud based have to run on something and MS is holding the backbone for them.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here and the next paragraph. If you're suggesting Microsoft benefit because they power PSN and Nintendo's network, this isn't the case. What Microsoft gain is increasing the chances that two or more people can play together online.

This is perhaps the greatest point missed by those thinking crossplay/cross buy are only for the losers.

Not losers, but certainly smaller user bases. If part of the appeal of a platform (or games, or range of games) a vibrant multiuser player base then smaller communities linking together is a clear win for those communities.

MS will never turn point on this, because they are likely to profit more from cross play than to wall up. Walling up doesn't increase reach, and MS is now all about reach.

Microsoft's Xbox team don't have a good record on "never". Sometimes "never" has been two weeks (never selling Xbox without Kinect). Microsoft will do what is right for them at the particular time given the circumstances.

There is clearly a significant chunk of change at stake here or Sony wouldn't be holding out as long as they have. Equally, despite a few mentions in mainstream press, it's really not creating much of wave of anger. If Sony do relent I can only see a partial policy change, perhaps something along the lines of Apple transaction tax for anything purchased through a PSN account.

But right now, they're in a position of power and they don't seem to be losing much in the way of goodwill from their user base. Their must be PS4 owners with non-PS4 friends who want to play together and can't, but perhaps it's just not enough to worry Sony.

 

[iroboto]

MS runs ubisofts servers and other publishers. Not PSN and Nintendo. But the idea of running those games and hosting them was more or less where I wanted to go. I'm assuming that MS is going to allow streaming of your games library to any device. Someone has to pay for that, either the consumers or the publisher. Either way, they're finding other ways to monetize their cloud strategy.

Microsoft's Xbox team don't have a good record on "never". Sometimes "never" has been two weeks (never selling Xbox without Kinect). Microsoft will do what is right for them at the particular time given the circumstances.

lol fair enough. good call out there.

And Sony won't relent. I do think Sony will keep foot until they figure out a better way around it. Until then, they're not going to take the loss on crossplay/buy. But to the people saying MS would turn tail if they were the leaders, I don't believe anymore at least.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All these companies face the loss of revenue for DLC when it can be bought through a different portal - MS, Sony, Apple, Google, Valve. At the end of the day though, they just have to live with it. Trying to wall off their garden will only alienate consumers.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

All these companies face the loss of revenue for DLC when it can be bought through a different portal - MS, Sony, Apple, Google, Valve. At the end of the day though, they just have to live with it. Trying to wall off their garden will only alienate consumers.

In which case it becomes all about making your platform the most attractive one to play that title on, which would generally mean people would buy the DLC on your platform because it's the platform they play on the most.

Which makes it even more odd to me that Sony would be so afraid of this. They should be welcoming this with open arms.

• If people continue to buy on other platforms, then they'll continue to mostly play on those other platforms
  • So even if they play occasionally on PS4, it's a not a big drain on Sony.
• If people start to like the PS4 platform more and want to play the game more on the PS4 then people will start to make their purchases on PS4.
• If you do what Sony are doing, you're potentially alienating anyone that tries your platform and discouraging them from buying more DLC on your platform.

This isn't like an exclusive game on your platform where if the player wants to play the game they have to play it on your platform. This is DLC in a F2P game. A situation where it's easy to abandon a platform in favor of another one.

Especially if as Sony are doing, they are stealing your content from your previous platform. They are basically saying to anyone that bought their content on XBO or Switch, you don't own that DLC, Sony now owns that DLC. And if you want to play that DLC you have to play it on a Sony device.

But I guess Sony can get away with taking ownership of other people's things. And Epic basically allowing them to do this makes them complicit as well.

I can only imagine the nightmare that would result if Square-Enix decided to port FFXIV to the Switch or XBO.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

In which case it becomes all about making your platform the most attractive one to play that title on, which would generally mean people would buy the DLC on your platform because it's the platform they play on the most.

Which makes it even more odd to me that Sony would be so afraid of this. They should be welcoming this with open arms.

When you look at your monthly income and outgoings and work how much each month you have left over, are you "afraid" to give 50% of that amount to charity? It's not 'fear', they just don't want to give up money for somebody else to be better off. It's a sentiment I think most people can relate to. It's real easy to get generous with someone else's money

While PlayStation is doing great financially, and most of Sony is doing pretty well, it wasn't that long ago that Sony was bleeding cash year on year and they lost billions and billions from their market cap. They are a shell of what they were 15 years ago. In this circumstance they'd be foolish to surrender revenue that they don't have to. Maybe when the new consoles are announced and people are looking at the pros and cons, this issue will be a new swing factor.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

When you look at your monthly income and outgoings and work how much each month you have left over, are you "afraid" to give 50% of that amount to charity? It's not 'fear', they just don't want to give up money for somebody else to be better off. It's a sentiment I think most people can relate to. It's real easy to get generous with someone else's money

While PlayStation is doing great financially, and most of Sony is doing pretty well, it wasn't that long ago that Sony was bleeding cash year on year and they lost billions and billions from their market cap. They are a shell of what they were 15 years ago. In this circumstance they'd be foolish to surrender revenue that they don't have to. Maybe when the new consoles are announced and people are looking at the pros and cons, this issue will be a new swing factor.

Except in this case, they aren't surrendering revenue. They are actively taking content from other platform by locking out content that people bought on those other platforms on their platform.

Not only does that not make any money from them, they are, in essense stealing content from other platforms as this often happens without the users explicit consent (in the case of Fortnite).

Now, you'd have a point if Sony were just preventing the use of DLC bought on other platforms. That's what they should have done. But that isn't what they are doing.

So, they aren't making money (the content was bought on another platform already) and they are commandeering that content by telling users that if you don't play on the Sony platform you no longer have access to the content you bought on ANOTHER platform.

2 things they could have done that wouldn't have gotten people upset.

1. Accept that the world is moving increasing towards people owning multiple devices and them wanting to use their things on multiple devices.
2. Say nope, we're not about that. And block any content that wasn't purchased on the Sony platform.

Right now they are getting the worst of all worlds. Accusations of stealing peoples content by taking the content purchased on other platforms and then blocking the use of that content on other platforms. As they've done that they aren't making money from it anyway, so what do they gain? Nothing except bad publicity and I wouldn't be surprised if at some point users sought legal council and filed a class action lawsuit.

Not only that, they are still fine with people buying content on certain platforms and using it freely on the Sony platform as well as those other platforms. But the fact that they are commandeering content versus blocking content purchased on rival platforms makes them look far FAR worse.

In other words it's not about the money from the DLC that they are concerned with. It's about taking the content that people purchased on rival platforms and denying users their right to use their content on those consoles.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Except in this case, they aren't surrendering revenue. They are actively taking content from other platform by locking out content that people bought on those other platforms on their platform.

Just to clarify, I was never referring to the Fortnite issue, only the wider Sony policy.

It is not within Sony's power to dictate what happens with Epic's Fortnite accounts, Epic let that dumb-assery happen.

 

[Malo]

It is not within Sony's power to dictate what happens with Epic's Fortnite accounts, Epic let that dumb-assery happen.

Of course it's within Sony's power. That's how it happened due to their large player base and Epic willing to go forward by virtue of money. You think Epic decided to enable this debacle simply because Sony asked nicely?

 

[BRiT]

It is absolutely within Sony's power. If it wasn't within Sony's power, they flat out would have come out and say so in order to stop the constant beatings their brand is taking on the social media platforms. Just take a look at every single tweet Sony has done since then to see unrelenting replies with #BlameSony or Sony:FuckThePlayers messages. It's not a good image when every single message you're trying to communicate is getting pissed on with the Fortnite hijacking message.

 

[Scott_Arm]

And another one

https://www.cnet.com/news/fallout-7...rm-multiplayer-because-of-sony-says-director/

 

[Malo]

Sony announcement soon:

We've listened to the community regarding cross-play so we've decided to open this to vendors willing to work with Sony to the benefit of you, the gamers. With our store being the best around, anyone who wants to cross-play with their games may do so, with the added benefit of only buying DLC through our store. Bought the game on Xbox? No worries, from now on if you play with anyone on playstation, you'll be glad to know you can no longer buy anything for that game through that shoddy Xbox store. You can login at store.playstation.com to make your purchases now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Thinking about it a bit more, I do think it's quite a big deal for Sony. Main reason being people who would have bought PS to play with their PS friends will be able to consider other platforms. That is, whoever's winning the console race no longer has popularity momentum on their sides, with friends having to buy the same console as each other. Particularly, PC becomes far more attractive. eg. Before I was given a PS4 as a present, I was umming and erring whether to invest in PS or PC. In future, I could go PC and still play with my friends if they have PS5s or whatever.

Not only does it loosen the stranglehold on DLC monetisation, but also the social lock-ins. Consoles will have to compete elsewhere, notably making killer exclusives to woo customers onto the box as the preferred playing platform.

 

[Malo]

Thinking about it a bit more, I do think it's quite a big deal for Sony. Main reason being people who would have bought PS to play with their PS friends will be able to consider other platforms. That is, whoever's winning the console race no longer has popularity momentum on their sides, with friends having to buy the same console as each other. Particularly, PC becomes far more attractive. eg. Before I was given a PS4 as a present, I was umming and erring whether to invest in PS or PC. In future, I could go PC and still play with my friends if they have PS5s or whatever.

Not only does it loosen the stranglehold on DLC monetisation, but also the social lock-ins. Consoles will have to compete elsewhere, notably making killer exclusives to woo customers onto the box as the preferred playing platform.

I agree with you, it makes perfect business sense. They screwed up though with hijacking the Fortnite accounts and now their hand is being forced on the whole crossplay fiasco, not just Fortnite. They've dug their own grave.

 

[iroboto]

Thinking about it a bit more, I do think it's quite a big deal for Sony. Main reason being people who would have bought PS to play with their PS friends will be able to consider other platforms. That is, whoever's winning the console race no longer has popularity momentum on their sides, with friends having to buy the same console as each other. Particularly, PC becomes far more attractive. eg. Before I was given a PS4 as a present, I was umming and erring whether to invest in PS or PC. In future, I could go PC and still play with my friends if they have PS5s or whatever.

Not only does it loosen the stranglehold on DLC monetisation, but also the social lock-ins. Consoles will have to compete elsewhere, notably making killer exclusives to woo customers onto the box as the preferred playing platform.

Yea DSoup summed it up well. Big risk for Sony, and people can demand it all they want but I don’t yet see the business case that would benefit them as a result.

If all 3P games were crossplay. It would change the landscape in favour of companies with better platforms or hardware. Basically it would undermine their strongest strategy (1P titles being the draw) and hand it over to their competitors or let them back into the game.

Since 1P titles can be made at a loss to draw in audiences, you don’t want to be in a position that the only titles bought on your platform are 1P only.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Absolutely, it's the correct Business and Corporate approach for Sony to ignore their players and only do what is best for Sony.

However, that kind of goes against Sony's messaging for this generation that they are "for the players" and just puts a big bullseye on them that screams out to players that Sony is for Sony.

Sony definitely isn't in this "for the players" despite what they try to market themselves as.

It may also get to the point where developers become increasingly frustrated and encourage people to rail against Sony in order to get crossplay enabled (it benefits both players and developers). While I doubt the developers will abandon the PlayStation platform due to this, I could see a situation where developers will subtly encourage their fans to not buy it on the PlayStation platform.

It's especially egregious, if I'm reading things correctly that you could buy content for Fortnite on The Switch, log into the PS4 to try out Fortnite just ONCE. And then forevermore you are unable to use that content on The Switch. IE - you can't transfer your content that you bought on another platform back to that platform once you use your account on the PS4 version of Fortnite.

Just think about that. You linked your account on PS4 for a weekend party at a friends house. And now you can no longer access your Fortnite content on your main console on which you bought that content. Hell, they may not even own a PS4 console, in which case they are forever locked out of content they purchased.

Once you link your account to PS4 it is forever locked to PS4 and can't be used on Switch or Xbox, even if that account was first used on those platforms.

There is no mechanism to link a Fortnite account to Xbox or Switch once it has been used on PS4 Fortnite. If this was something Epic was doing on their own, then there would be a mechanism for at least a one time transfer as there is when linking to PS4.

It's all Sony that is demanding Epic do this.

Epic isn't blameless in this as they are complicit in letting this happen. Epic should have at least stood up to Sony and refused to do this, instead telling users that wanted to link their accounts on PS4 that they cannot do that.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

I wonder if Fortnite was just a F2P policy. I doubt they ever expected Fortnite to get so popular that this would hit them like this.