Sony’s backwards policies when it comes to cross platform play have been revealed over this week, as first Minecraft, and then Rocket League– and both substantially major games- have been announced to be getting full cross platform play between their PC, Xbox, and Switch versions, but the PS4 being excluded.
This happens because Sony won’t allow for cross platform play whatsoever, despite originally championing it, when it was clear Microsoft would never allow for it. In an interview with Sony’s Jim Ryan, Eurogamer decided to ask just exactly what is up with this frankly inexplicable and anti consumer move.
“We’ve got to be mindful of our responsibility to our install base. Minecraft – the demographic playing that, you know as well as I do, it’s all ages but it’s also very young,” Ryan said. “We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe. Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it’s something we have to think about very carefully.”
When Eurogamer pointed out that Nintendo, a company even more protective of its users, especially younger ones, and of its ‘curated ecosystems’, is on board with cross platform play, Ryan had no answer, saying only, “Yeah, that’s true. Everybody has to take their own decisions. We’ll do that. Like I say, we have no philosophical stance against cross-play at all.”
So is there a chance that this might happen any time soon? According to Ryan, it does not seem to be on the table currently. “: I don’t think anything is ever a done deal. Anybody who is dogmatic in that manner is typically a fool. That said, to my knowledge, there is no live conversation ongoing at the moment.”
So basically, don’t expect cross platform play with PS4 any time soon. It doesn’t seem like Sony is about to budge from their stance anytime soon. This is indefensible.