Is anyone else tired of Sony’s tone-deaf responses to the controversies surrounding cross-platform play yet? While Microsoft and Nintendo both continue to make strides in the area, Sony keeps doing the opposite, issuing bafflingly ignorant responses such as this one, and also locking people’s Fortnite accounts to PS4, which in particular is downright anti-consumer.
For as much as they’ve done right with the vast library of games the PS4 has accrued this generation, cross-play is one area in particular where Sony seems to be completely deaf to demands. Mike Ybarra, corporate vice president of Xbox at Microsoft, recently took to Twitter to talk about Sony’s recent comments on cross-play, saying that Sony “still isn’t listening to gamers”, before saying, “All games should be cross play and progression with the right input flexibility and gamer options.”
In response, someone pointed out that Sony’s stance makes sense, given the PS4’s huge install-base, but Ybarra responded by saying that Microsoft, with the Xbox One and Windows, have a much larger and more diverse install-base in place, and that they still allow cross-play. “We run Windows and Console,” he said. “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.”
Hard to argue with him. To be fair, Sony does allow cross-play with tablets, mobiles, and PC with some of its games, but financially driven decisions have so far led to them being simply unwilling to do the same with Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s consoles. Really, at this point, I think Sony are just shooting themselves in the foot with any further comments about cross-play.