Ever since Microsoft announced that Xbox Live would support cross-play with other consoles – which led to players in Fortnite and Minecraft teaming up on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and whatnot – Sony has been adamantly avoiding the same for PS4.
However, Sony recently started an open beta for Fortnite to allow for cross-play between Xbox One, PS4, and Switch players. That’s not including those who are also on PC, iOS, and Android, so it’s an ambitious undertaking as whole. Why did cross-play take so long to arrive for the PS4 though? To answer this, PlayStation Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden appeared on the PlayStation Blogcast and addressed the same.
“This is something we know about, we know this is a want, this is a desire,” he said. “And we want to deliver that in the best way possible. Now, enabling cross-play isn’t just a flip of a switch and there you go. It’s a very multi-dimensional attribute or feature. So we had to look at it from a technical point of view, we had to look at it with our partners from a business point of view. We have to make sure if we enable this do we have the right customer service support? Do we have the right messaging out there? It’s rather ordinal.
“Everything has to go in a certain order to get them all set up and that’s why it has taken us longer certainly than what I would have wanted. But it took us longer than what it was going to take to get it ready and get it done which is why we were able to not only able to announce it this past Tuesday, but enable it at the same time.”
Regardless of other reasons why Sony would go with cross-play, whether it’s catering to the demands of its user base or some other benefits, don’t expect every single title to suddenly adopt cross-play. Bethesda hasn’t entirely ruled out the idea of cross-play for the upcoming Fallout 76, but it’s not major point of focus right now.