One of the biggest controversies to have come out of E3 has been Sony blocking cross platform play for Fortnite with the Xbox and Nintendo Switch versions of the game. This shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, since Sony has previously done the same thing with Minecraft and Rocket League, among other games- but Fortnite is the most popular game in the world at the moment, which got a very high profile release on the Switch. This got people to take notice.
We’ve already talked about how Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime had nothing to say to Sony in response to their blocking cross platform play and progression with the Switch version of the game- however, Phil Spencer, boss of Xbox, did have some comments on Sony’s attitude.
“If you bought your son, your child, an Xbox, and I bought my child a PlayStation – and I’m just a parent, it’s their birthday, whatever – and the kids want to go play Fortnite and they all of a sudden go home and can’t play with each other, it doesn’t feel like it helps the consumers,” Spencer told website Giant Bomb. “If it doesn’t help the developers and it doesn’t help the consumer, then it doesn’t feel like it helps to grow gaming to me.”
Spencer was quick to add that he doesn’t want to judge any company on “business decisions”, but it is pretty clear at this point he’s not a fan of how Sony has handled this problem- nor is anyone else (or at least, anyone who is actually a fan of games, rather than just a fanboy for a company). Hopefully, all this public pressure gets Sony to capitulate on this issue sooner rather than later.