The issue of Sony disallowing cross-play is not the reason for controversy in this case.
It's actually because logging in to a Fortnite account on PS4 irreversibly locks that account to Sony's walled garden.
I created my Fortnite account on PC and played there. Then I logged in on PS4, and played there. Now when I try to log in on Switch, I'm not able to. Here's the actual error message given:
"This Fortnite account is associated with a platform which does not allow it to operate on Switch. Neither the Fortnite website nor Epic Customer Service are able to change this. To play Fortnite on Switch, please create a new account."
The problem is that even disassociating the account from Sony won't then allow me to use my Fortnite account outside of Sony's walled garden. The account is permanently tainted by PlayStation.
Most importantly, the irreversibility of Sony's taint upon your account isn't disclosed until after the fact. It's a classic anti-user misdeed.
Anyway, Hacker News seems like the right place to ponder SaaSS user account foibles.
Having worked on federated login with Sony, I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates. It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms. It's for the same reason Spotify subscriptions use in-app purchase but you put your credit card into Uber and Lyft. Allowing cross-play means the in-game items you paid for with loot crates should transfer.
Aha, HN devs say, why don't you just carry a bit with those items that were paid for and hide them on other platforms? This is, more or less, how Blizzard deals with this. However, if that's not how you set it up out of the gate, that can be a painful thing to do retroactively. That's why I feel it's a bit disingenuous to heap ALL the hate on Sony. Epic could possibly work around this.
That said, everything about the account is cosmetic-related. You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...but how big of a deal is that really? It doesn't affect gameplay. That's probably what Epic is thinking.
I think its insane how many comments are trying to deflect from the issue. Sony can and should allow users to bring their accounts and purchases with them to and from their platform.
> It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms.
I can purchase skins on PC and use them on PS4. So that blows up the legal argument.
This feels like a weird distortion because its gaming related. For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales. We would be roasting Apple right now if they were locking it down like Sony is.
You can buy items in the game on the PC play it on multiple platforms but as soon as you log into the game on a PS4 the account will be locked to that system as far as consoles go.
There is no warnning, there is no way to reverse this and they essentially lock you out out of your own account.
Apple wanted a cut that Amazon didn’t want to give but they didn’t not block you from using the Kindle app on an iPhone nor did they locked out the books from being accessible on other platforms once you’ve opened them on your phone.
Not even Apple is that stupid.
Also even if Apple did block books purchased outside of their platform that would still would not be comparable as they did not forcibly locked you out of content you’ve already owned on all other platforms.
I would be Ok if Sony and Epic made a deal that items purchased from the PSN store would be unavailable else where but locking your account because you logged in even once and didn’t play the game or even bought an item is just bullshit.
I should add to this that this isn’t even only Fortnite as this is on the Epic account level so if you played previous Epic games on your PS4 your account is locked out by default.
A friend of mine had his Fortnite account locked out because they played the Paragon beta on their PS4 like 2 years ago.
They don’t even own a PS4 anymore and never played Fortnite on it.
> For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales
They also don't allow you to purchase books within their ecosystem. On PC, you're using Epic's payment platform. Same way you can pay for your kindle books on the web in Amazon's ecosystem and then read them on an iPad.
My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles, when followed lazily, can lead to anti-consumer practices. I don't think it's deflecting from the issue to discuss the underlying technical and legal constraints. It's Hacker News. If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.
I don't see how this is different from Xbox/iOS/PC/Switch all sharing digital purchases. Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?
> My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles
I don't think their are any technical challenges unless you insist digital licenses must be sandboxed. Epic has accidentally removed the technical blocks previously.
> It's Hacker News. If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.
I'm sorry if it feels like I'm raging but I strongly believe users need to fight for fair digital licensing. Sandboxing purchases feels like a fine technical workaround but I'd prefer platform owners change policy to match users expectations.
> Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?
Not all companies "move fast and break things" in legal matters. We don't know the full circumstances, but Sony may have evaluated the landscape and decided the liabilities weren't worth the potential profits, while Nintendo and Microsoft looked at the landscape and decided that the profits exceeded the liabilities in this case.
It's for the same reason that you find Wells Fargo or Facebook committing transgressions that other banks or social media sites may avoid.
> > For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales
> They also don't allow you to purchase books within their ecosystem.
Apple will absolutely let you purchase ebooks within their ecosystem. But if you are selling other people's books, that 30% is likely your entire margin.
Ironically, you can buy real books too, without giving apple a cut (except their portion for the CC tx fees from the bank for Apple Pay)
>You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...
But you can't. It would not only cost money to, but it is also time gated, and once that gate closes you can't open it back up. No new account can have a John Wick skin because it requires buying something no longer for sale and then completing challenges that are no longer part of the game.
>I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates.
But Sony's response says "We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices". It seems like consoles in their target market are specifically excluded for portability here.
Interesting, I didn't see that. In that case, it makes the account lockout case even weaker. There really is no technical reason for it. However, that makes it Epic's issue, since they clearly have means of handling it.
> You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...
My understanding, having not played Fortnite:
* Some skins (like John Wick) are time-limited and purchase-limited and achievement-limited. In other words you have to purchase the Battle Pass for a given season and complete all the challenges before the time runs out. John Wick skins are past that window, nothing can be done about them now.
* Other skins are just time and money limited. I'm told that you can log in and there will be only a single skin for sale.
But really, discussing whether it's a big deal[0] is missing what's important here. Neither Sony nor Epic adequately warned players that this would happen. That's the meat of the issue right there.
Again, I've not played Fortnite, only seen it in the Epic launcher when I dust off Unreal Engine 4.
[0]: Do I really need to say it is a big deal that players who poured money into their account are now being told to start from scratch?
It's weirder than that, you aren't really paying for the items directly from Sony's platform when you play on the PS4, you're buying V-bucks, Fortnite's currency, and that's what you use to buy your items.
For one, the solution should be keeping two different V-Buck wallets: one for Sony, and another for everyone else, legal issue solved, moving on. So, because it's not happening, there must be something we're missing here...
To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.
I have lost any kind of trust in Sony. After the massive hacks, shitty anti-customer attitude and now locking the Fortnite accounts, I will never buy another Sony product in the future.
Everybody understands the value of crossplay and portability of 'stuff'. It's just not particularly valuable when you're in a dominant position.
All of these companies have had pretty shitty, anti-customer attitudes. Microsoft popularized pay-for-online services with Xbox Gold and now it's standard to have to pay a monthly fee to play your console games online. Conservely, crossplay would be the standard now is Microsoft has jumped on board when Sony was supporting it last generation. Nintendo hasn't been able to maintain a reasonable level of presense-across-device, creating a massive headache when changing devises or getting a new console and having to repurchase things you shouldn't have to. I can't really see the justification for not buying a Sony product but continuing to support Xbox or Nintendo given all of their attitudes over the years.
I believe the Xbox Live criticism is unfair. The reason the service gained popularity is because it added value. Because XBL centralized the online gaming experience, a lot of benefits were realized including centralizing your multiplayer experience (community and content), and not having to maintain multiple subscriptions for different game services. That is and was worth the premium, atleast for me personally.
For Nintendo, I think your criticism is valid, but only first party games. In the case of Sony, they are blocking (what seems to be) Epic's intention of allowing cross platform. And this is different since it's a policy choice, rather than having to invest development hours or something.
> Because XBL centralized the online gaming experience
Gamespy and Steam's multiplayer system already did that for free.
> a lot of benefits were realized including centralizing your multiplayer experience (community and content)
Again, same thing.
> not having to maintain multiple subscriptions for different game services
I never needed to ever, except for MMOs, which I was still required to pay for on XBL at the time.
> That is and was worth the premium
No it wasn't, the fact you had to play multiplayer hosted on your own console, hosted on your own internet connection, by software you already bought is ridiculous. They offered "free updates", community features and other services completely free. But, multiplayer, the only thing most of us wanted and none of this "value add", you had to pay.
I'm confused. What's Nintendo's attitude? Not being successful in the market?
I get the whole 'dominant position' argument. It just seems dumb to me to behave like this when you're in a dominant position. Seems that big corporations learn the same lesson over and over again - in the meantime customers are left holding the bag.
BTW, full disclosure: I'm a Nintendo Switch fanboi, so take everything that comes out of my keyboard with a pinch of salt.
As a fellow Switch fanboy: Nintendo's online purchasing systems have (until the Switch) been extremely weird. Purchases on the eShop (or equivalent) on Wii, DSi, 3DS, and (IIRC) Wii U weren't tied to an account, they were tied to a console. If your console died, you couldn't just buy another one and automatically get all your games back, you'd have to call Nintendo customer support and get them to move your licenses over. The Switch fixed that but has the new problem that save data can't be backed up (until their paid online service starts in a couple months).
Not just this, but the other mystifying bit is that titles had to be repurchased for different types of devices. Not only did you have to physically migrate your games between consoles, but like, virtual console titles might be available for both 3DS and Wii platforms, but you'd have to buy them separately on each. And the Switch doesn't have "virtual console" persay yet, but will sell some legacy titles, like the new Donkey Kong release under the "arcade archives" label.
In most other companies, like Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, etc., if you buy a title, you can play it on any platform that supports it. The fact that Nintendo players can't accumulate a library of legacy Nintendo titles and play them on any Nintendo console they port it to demonstrates Nintendo has a strong interest in repackaging and reselling the same games over and over again.
The one notable exception to this was that you were given a decently steep discount on "upgrading" Wii VC titles to their essentially identical Wii U versions, like 80% off or so. Still, it really shouldn't have been paid at all.
sure. from a technical point of view their approach sucked (and the market "punished them" for this, right?)
but at least at a philosophical (how things should work) they did the right thing in helping you move your licenses over.
What? Last time I looked the PS4 was outselling the Xbox 1 by a 2:1 ratio and the switch was selling about a 10th of that. Sony doesn't care about cross play because it doesn't benefit them. Your personal feelings aside, Sony has absolutely dominated this latest round of the console wars. It wasn't even close.
I guess the point was that right now, they have the most consoles and games out there. That being said I think they have repeatedly pissed off enough people that they will not be seriously considered when the time to buy a new console comes.
> To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.
You haven't really looked at app platforms before, have you. If you buy evernote on IOS, you're sure not getting it on android.
MS is being friendly to it because they're behind. In the Xbox 360/PS3 days, it was Sony asking to do cross-play and Microsoft denying it. Its a PR play, and you're buying it.
I'm not on Sony, but I think the appropriate analogy would be making an evernote account on google, then logging in on ios, and then subsequently being unable to use that account on google.
Holy shit, now I’m pissed. Been playing this on PS4 & pretty beyond annoyed to learn that stepping foot inside their garden is having effects outside of it.
I think Epic should pull a power move while they have the most popular game in the world and pull it from Sony with no notice.
If you can file a complaint, a few of my friends already filed a complaint with their local EU anti-trust and consumer protection agencies.
As you said they were quite annoyed that an account that they’ve spent a lot of time and also money on is now essentially locked out and irreversibly so without any warning or consent.
It seems that Epic is partially to blame for this. If they just required PS4 accounts only for PS4 it would cause far less problem for people. Epic could also allow the transfer of all unlocked items and such between accounts, but chooses not to because they benefit from people being forced to buy it a second time as well. That Epic would have to implement this functionality is the fault of Sony, but that they implement it in the way they current do is the fault of Epic, and so consumers should be mad at both Epic and Sony.
I don't really see how Epic can't fix this. Are they deleting your account on their servers when switching to Sony? Seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing to do.
They probably are contractually bound to have this behavior with Sony in exchange for promotion or cash. It doesn't benefit Epic in any way and it benefits Sony a lot.
I'm not sure what you mean. If they have a business arrangement it probably explicitly includes a one way transfer of accounts into PS4. Sony would clearly be willing to pay for this (both minimize friction getting in and maximize it getting out).
Uhhh did he say it wasn't Sony's fault? His point was cross-play isn't the worst part, but the way Sony locks your account in. Don't see how that exonerates Sony.
For that very reason I refuse to buy Sony products. For ages they forced they (incompatible, proprietary, overpriced memory cards) and PS is sooo locked that it doesn't make sense to invest (even if they have exclusive titles)
The infuriating issue with Sony's cross play ineptitude is that because I cross-linked a PC Fortnite account with my PS4, I cannot use the same account to play on the Switch.
Probably worth noting that this is true even if you unlink the account from PSN. Linking the account once blocks that account from other consoles permanently.
It's especially ridiculous for those who played the Paragon beta on PS4, as their Epic accounts are still blocked from other consoles even though Paragon has been cancelled and shut down.
No, there is no warning when you link your Epic account to your Sony account, as far as I know.
As for why accounts are linked to a console, linking your account means you can have the same friend list across platforms, which makes it easier to play with your friends no matter where you're playing. Also, and maybe more importantly, you have access to all of your cosmetics across platforms.
Sony is the king of the console heap so they have no reason to allow cross-play. "Everybody is on PS4, so I need to get a PS4 to play with them" is a huge driver of their sales. That is the moat around their lucrative console castle. There is no way they'd allow a bridge to Xbox or Switch like Microsoft and Nintendo push-- it would only weaken their Sony's position and strengthen their competition's.
I think that in any large company in a market leading position with a lot of turnover, it's essentially impossible to convince them to act in their own long-term best interest. Microsoft is acting scrappy right now (because they have to) and Sony is acting like a self-satisfied dinosaur (because no one is going to get promoted for doing anything different).
Sony is thinking short term - "If we open up on Fortnite, we'll sell less content now through our digital store". So no one at Sony is willing to fight for this. It won't make any charts go up for the next quarterly earnings.
But the long-term view is that they are teaching an entire new generation of gamers that "Playstation is the worst place to play Fortnite - the world's most popular game". That is going to be a disaster the next time new consoles are released - just like how Microsoft made similarly dumb moves when they first launched the XBox One.
What is the dominant platform for Fortnite? There are 125 million registered users and 3.3 active concurrently but I have yet to see any numbers broken down by platform.
If we assume PS4 is not the dominant platform then your assertions might be true, however if PS4 is the dominant platform then they're absurd.
Sony is teaching the same lesson as Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Atari. It's best to buy the same console as your friends.
I don't have hard numbers on Fortnite, but from what was sussed out of PUBG press releases, it sounded like mobile platforms are way, way more popular by player count than console/PC for them. Fortnite is a little different because it's free on every platform, but I bet they still have similar user numbers just because a lot more people have phones than any console. And I bet this is especially true for the younger generation that Fortnite appeals to.
Of course that's not to say that any mobile user who dips into a free-to-play game has the same long term customer value as a hardcore console player so I'm not sure how that math works out. But it's worth keeping in mind that the player base of any console is dwarfed by phone users and that's a funnel of millions of new gamers who see the PS4 as the only platform that "sucks for Fortnite". I think that could have long term market effects.
the problem with dinosaurs is that they go extinct. It's gonna take a while but with this kind of attitude they are more or less ensuring they don't have a future.
Sony is thinking long term. As is Microsoft. It's short-term to cater to a specific game that happens to be popular today.
In the long term, neither console maker wants cross-platform support. They want to create a situation where everyone has to have both the Sony device and the Microsoft device. That's an equilibrium that both companies are happy with. Pure cross-platform play ends in consumers not needing both devices and hence total sales will drop.
When the "pendulum swings" and Xbox has a dominant generation, expect Microsoft to reject cross-platform play.
I don't fully agree that Microsoft would be doing this if they were dominant. Maybe under Mattrick, but Phil Spencer has been making a lot of right calls since becoming head of XBoX, like bringing all their games day 1 to PC and going all-in on backwards compatibility for their 360 and OG XBoX titles. Even their adaptive controller is cool, even if I'm not someone who would use it. I recommend watching his interviews with Jeff from Giant Bomb that he's done every year at E3 to get an idea of his views when it comes to this stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70z2jtcQf4s
Companies change all the time, though. The next head of XBoX could go back to the Mattrick days and completely burn all the good will they have. But, as long as Phil and Nadella are around, I don't think they'll be blocking cross-play anytime soon, even if they do become the dominant platform.
Plus the 360 era examples are fascinating given historic context.
Microsoft had 360-PC cross-play in a very small number of games (under the now much maligned Games for Windows Live banner and DRM regime), such as Shadowrun (FPS). Microsoft wanted some consistency in the network stack, and GfWL was a part of that attempt.
Apparently Trion when building Defiance (MMO related to TV show) asked both Sony and Microsoft for cross-play (and technically demoed it), but was rebuked by Microsoft's "network experience" concerns, which at the time were at least somewhat valid, particularly compared to what Microsoft was trying to do with Xbox Live and GfWL.
A couple titles (one of the FF MMOs, 14 was it?) just built in cross-play between 360/PS3, didn't ask, didn't really advertise it, and mostly were successful and not shut down.
On the one hand, Microsoft downplayed cross-play with Sony in the 360 generation for fear of "filthy non-paying gamers with no proper user accounts" ruining the Xbox Live experience, but on the other hand Microsoft was very excited for cross-play as an opportunity on Windows.
Microsoft's change in stance here on cross-play over the two generations could be entirely attributed to lessons learned from GfWL's failures, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with dominant position on console one way or the other. A lot of Microsoft's current excitement about cross-play doesn't look that different than from the 360/GfWL era, beyond, of course, branding changes (Microsoft Store, Xbox Live (on Windows)) and some relaxation/evolution on network accounts and DRM/anti-cheating (for instance, Xbox Live on Windows is "free" now, Gold status is no longer required for PC multiplayer; Microsoft Store is little bit of a friendlier DRM regime than GfWL at its worst; etc).
I wouldn't be so sure. There has been some talks about bringing Final Fantasy XIV to Xbox & Switch for quite a while, but the condition for that from FFXIV side is cross-platform play like the case is already with PC & PS4 (and previously PS3, latest expansion dropped PS3 support). From sounds of it Nintendo and Microsoft had some issues regarding that.
That's not what I understood from the article you linked. It sounds like the issue mainly stems from uncertainty on whether Square Enix would be able to push a patch out and have it reach all of their player's across platforms at the same time. But Yoshida never points fingers on which of the three is to blame (my guess is Nintendo, they're online infrastructure has never been great).
"One of the issues Yoshida noted, however, was that many companies don't consider how updates to the way online services are operated and regulated can impact an MMORPG.
"Those can become a hurdle when we consider operating FFXIV for an extended period of time," he said. "So when I talk to those first-party companies, I ask them, 'Do you have the capability to prepare for that, do you have the resolve that you're going to make sure to take responsibility and take care of those, do you have that willingness?'
"If we are able to come to some sort of agreement, a handshake so to speak, or if it does end up being that unfortunately we can't do a handshake with Final Fantasy XIV, either way we'll make sure to communicate with our players. But we have been tenacious--we've been trying to keep at it and be persistent about our conversations.""
Considering that cross-play between Microsoft, Nintendo, and PC is supported for multiple games now (Rocket League, Minecraft, and Fortnite), I think it's safe to say that Sony's the one holding back cross-play as a whole. As in to say, even if the above issues were fixed, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony said no anyway.
Fair points. I personally disagree that Sony is making the right long term choice - its hard to come back from a widely negative perception among consumers in such a perception-driven industry and they have other ways to drive Playstation adoption.
But I totally agree that Microsoft would be doing exactly the same stuff if they happened to be the market leader.
> "Everybody is on PS4, so I need to get a PS4 to play with them"
To be honest that is why a few friends and myself got PS4s. We had quite a few friends on the platform and I already had an xbox, but I wanted to play with them so I got a PS4.
What's interesting is that you can cross play with PC and Mobile on PS4 though. It sounds like they just don't want to work with Microsoft or Nintendo.
I think the real reason Sony is so hesitant to implement crossplay is not that they are so far ahead of Microsoft in console sales, but because they are actually quite close in certain markets.
If you look at the global sales, then yes, the PS4 is stomping the Xbox One into oblivion at the moment. If you look at the US sales, the difference between them is much smaller [1]. If Sony enables crossplay, they will probably lose a lot of sales to Microsoft in the US because they lack the overwhelming popularity that they have in Japan and other markets.
This article [2] shows just how poorly the Xbox sells in Japan - the week the Xbox One X launched, only 1,639 were sold. Only 49 units of the less powerful Xbox One S were sold. For comparison, almost 30,000 PS4 and PS4 Pros were sold. Even the PS Vita beat out the Xbox, with around 3,000 sold.
I really would want to see Nintendo Switch to get even more mainstream than it is now.
Not that I appreciate their way too (supposedly the anti-piracy / console-locking measures in Switch are first grade?) but this would put pressure on Sony to possibly stop blocking cross-play.
The Switch and XBox One aren't really competitors to the same degree as the Xbox and PS4, and the games in this announcement aren't the sorts of games that sell a particular console. Rather, they're the sort of stuff you can sink time into between your purchases of AAA exclusives.
Annoucing this cross-play is a cheap win-win for both MS and Nintendo: For Nintendo, it solidifies that in the right context, the ultraportable Switch is a comparable platform to the cabinet-bound boxy consoles that are still current in their generation -- a marketing victory that handily exceeds the reputation of its predecessor, the Wii U. For Microsoft, it legitimizes their cross-play message by spreading beyond platforms that they both happened to own, and makes Sony look bad.
I think you're underestimating the popularity of Minecraft and Fortnite. There are absolutely people out there who only play Fortnite and nothing else. But you are right in that the Switch doesn't compete with the XBoX the same way the PS4 does (Nintendo consoles always played by their own rules). But Microsoft has already said that they'd be fine with crossplay with PS4, it's Sony holding up the line. Epic already accidentally (or so they say) enabled XBoX and PS4 crossplay once before for a short amount of time [1], so the work is already done, too.
Why would a company care about people who only play Fortnite? They’re not going to be buying anything other than those games, and when the fad dies away, they will too. It’s one thing to cater to casual players, who will buy lots of different games, another to Madden/COD players who will buy yearly installments. Pandering to s single fad that will be replaced within a year though is crazy. People will get tired of Battle Royale, just like they did with Hero shooters, and the fads before that.
1. Because it gets people on their system, who will then buy more games when the fad does eventually die out (which let's be clear won't be anytime soon). If someone playing Fortnite on PC asks their XBoX friends to download and play with them, now a bridge has been formed between the Fortnite only PC player and the XBoX player. It's only a few conversations away from "Hey, I got a 4K TV, let me get an XBoX so that I can keep playing Fortnite and all these other games with my friends."
2. Because it garners good will. Within the last few years, more and more companies are realizing that doing good by the consumer can still be profitable. Sony's the dominant platform now, but that can change within a year. If Microsoft is over here saying that their games are going to be backwards compatible forever and the consumer knows, through history, that Microsoft allows you to play with your friends no matter where they play, that's a substantial incentive to get the next XBoX over the next Playstation.
3. Because, and this is the simplest reason, why not? The work is already done, all Epic has to do is flip the switch. It requires no extra work on Sony's end, just willingness to allow their console to talk to other consoles. The way this is going, this is going to be net profit negative in the long run, with more people jumping to XBoX if they know Microsoft plays well with others.
One of the great things about Rocket League is the cross play. While, as a PS4 owner, I cannot play against those on XBox or Switch, I am able to play against PC players in addition to PS4. It is always nice increasing the player pool. That said, it is really frustrating that Sony is so stubborn on this issue.
I’m excited about the upcoming _true_ cross platform play coming mid July/August.
You will be able to create a new in-game gamertag; it will require re-adding friends but I’m really excited to be able to finally play remotely with my friends!
If anyone is curious, this was Sony's official response:
> We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. Fortnite is already a huge hit with PS4 fans, offering a true free-to-play experience so gamers can jump in and play online. With 79 million PS4s sold around the world and more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we’ve built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles. We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms.[1]
I've been following Sony for twenty years or so. "Interop" is not a word in their vocabulary. There are many innovations such as Minidisc, SACD, and ATRAC that never truly took off because they wanted to run proprietary from end to end and own all the rights. They never took a lesson from why IBM's microchannel bus doomed the PS/2.
Proprietary standards hamper adoption and success. Many try to be Apple but only one can end up pulling it off.
I see this as the same issue I have with any other Internet platform right now, gaming or not: the relationship is completely backwards. Rather than services referencing your data, for some cryptographically-secure owned-by-you data store, you give them things to store that are entirely outside your control.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, data is typically really expensive (time-wise at the very least) to create. It takes years to build up gaming history, social network points, comment histories and bookmarks, etc. Instead of that being irrevocably yours, instead you’re just one forgotten password or inept cloud provider mistake away from permanently losing the results of years of effort.
Is it fair to say that corporate self-image concerns seems to drive a lot of the behavior of game companies above and beyond market considerations? I feel like I am often scratching my head at things like this on Sony's or Nintendo's or Microsoft's behalf. For instance, 'The Last of Us' -- supposed to be a great game, can't play it because it's PS3/PS4 only, not going to buy a console just for this one game, it's 5 years old, would seem like a good candidate for a PC port. And yet, no dice.
(Many if not most of the decisions Nintendo made in the 2000s, particularly around internet gameplay for the gamecube, were equally confusing.)
The Last of Us is a game created by Naughty Dog, which is a studio that Sony owns. Exclusives like that drive sales of consoles. If you really want to play it without buying a console, you can use the PS Games-Streaming-as-a-service PS Now and play it from your PC. https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/explore/playstation-now/ps...
wow, big thanks for this, I didn't know about it. I chose a bad example then. I could summon others about the big 3's erratic behavior but anyway...I learned something valuable here, thanks.
Sony is the undisputed king of exclusive content. Microsoft really has nothing, and Nintendo lives off of a once per generation Mario/Zelda/Metroid. My guess is that they enjoy their clubhouse, and don't want to invite others to join it.
Nintendo is definitely the undisputed king of exclusive content.
Pokemon is the highest grossing media franchise in the world, higher than Star Wars. Mario comes in at number five, putting it above the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Batman, and Call of Duty.
We'll see how things shake out, but I would bet money that Nintendo will still be selling Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda games thirty years from now. I have no faith that Sony will even be making video game consoles at that point.
I don't think they will. They keep making the same mistakes over and over, and they have paid for it.
-they keep making systems based on gimmicks which limit the ability to make games on them or fulfill customer needs: cartridge format, second tv screen, motion controls,docking capability, etc.
-they waste a lot of time on gimmicks as well. Labo is a big failure, but its just like the ecard reader, GBA connectivity, and even to an extent Amiibos.
-their systems are underpowered and make it extremely hard to be a not-Nintendo developer on them. The Switch in particular has a horrid 3 party library of underpowered indie games you paid half as much for on other systems.
-They cannot embrace online
-their eshop is the most frustrating out of the three.
-Their exclusives are very hit or miss. Wii Fit died, Brain age died, Starfox is dead, Nintendogs is dead, Metroid is virtually dead, Advance Wars died, etc. ARMS seems to have died too. They are coasting on the strength of three core properties: mario, zelda, and pokemon.
Its pretty worrisome. They also didn't do themselves any favors by sunsetting the DS line, their portables insured against the failures of the home consoles. The portables also were good experimental platforms. If anything there may be a good risk they pull a Sega and just develop on others hardware.
Well, for starters, Nintendo has a lot of money at the moment. It was reported in 2017 that they were sitting on 946 Billion Yen in cash reserves [1], which is about 8.5 Billion dollars.
Assuming that money is earning no interest and there is no inflation (just to make the calculation easier), they could lose over 250 million dollars a year for the next thirty years before they run out of money.
> they keep making systems based on gimmicks which limit the ability to make games on them or fulfill customer needs: cartridge format, second tv screen, motion controls,docking capability, etc.
The second and fifth best selling video game consoles of all time are the Wii and the DS, both of which are based on gimmicks (motion control and touch screen, respectively). The cartridge format is also more or less a necessity for a mobile console.
> they waste a lot of time on gimmicks as well. Labo is a big failure, but its just like the ecard reader, GBA connectivity, and even to an extent Amiibos.
If selling 39 million Amiibos [2] counts as kind of a waste, I'm not sure what would be considered a success. Nintendo does have their fair share of failures but any company does.
> their systems are underpowered and make it extremely hard to be a not-Nintendo developer on them. The Switch in particular has a horrid 3 party library of underpowered indie games you paid half as much for on other systems.
Doom 2016 is on the Switch, Skyrim is on the Switch, Dragonball Fighter Z is coming soon, Wolfenstein 2 is coming, Fornite is already there. The Switch has easily the best 3rd party lineup of any Nintendo console since the Gamecube. Not to mention the fact that the indie games you speak of are also insanely popular.
> They cannot embrace online
This one I agree with, although I don't think it's a problem. Nintendo doesn't need great online to be a successful company, unlike Microsoft or Sony.
> Their exclusives are very hit or miss. Wii Fit died, Brain age died, Starfox is dead, Nintendogs is dead, Metroid is virtually dead, Advance Wars died, etc. ARMS seems to have died too. They are coasting on the strength of three core properties: mario, zelda, and pokemon.
They are hit or miss, but they have far more hits than any other company. Splatoon is insanely popular. They just released a Star Fox game in 2016 for the Wii U so I'm not sure why you'd say it's dead. We also know that Metroid Prime 4 is in development and they literally just released two Metroid games for the 3DS in 2016 and 2017. ARMS sold over a million copies so I wouldn't declare it dead yet, although I don't think it did as well as Nintendo wanted it to.
> Its pretty worrisome. They also didn't do themselves any favors by sunsetting the DS line
They haven't sunset the 3DS line yet. They plan on supporting it at least through 2018 into 2019. They've been selling in a pretty consistent manner since 2016 - around 6 million units a year, I think.
As a fairly on-and-off gamer, I can't really name any exclusive IPs from Sony.
I know Microsoft has Halo, and Nintendo has enough exclusives to make Smash Bros.
I vaguely recall Sony making their own Smash Bros a few years back, but none of the IPs featured in it have had any recent entries, nor are really that prominent.
While none of them are as popular as Nintendo's main series, Sony does have rather a lot of notable exclusive IP. LittleBigPlanet, Bloodborne, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, The Last of Us, Gravity Rush, PaRappa the Rapper, etc.
Halo is popular, but Sony has a much larger portfolio of exclusive IP than Microsoft does right now.
Very much relevant: https://xkcd.com/743/
I'm glad that this is making news, I hope people learn something. Sony lures people with shiny exclusives, don't take the bait or it's only going to get worse.
How is this related?
It doesn't matter which engine is used in general, the only problem here is Sony.
It isn't technical.
Fortnite proved it when it 'mistakenly' allowed PS4 players to play with Xbox One players due to a 'configuration issue'.
Exactly. No Vulkan support is the same problem as not allowing cross play - lock-in in case of MS and Sony. At least Nintendo support Vulkan on Switch:
I suppose they might use NVM to interface with Nintendo specific hardware, they don't need it for graphics. So if engine developers are smart, they minimize NVM usage to only those corner cases, since there is no need to reinvent the wheel and duplicate work.
>yet is used as much as GL ES 1.0 was on the PS3.
Any Vulkan based engine can use it. Wasn't there Doom release for Switch?
The reasons for doing this are great and benefit users but I fear this is the death of the console era. The idea of having different consoles with different hardware and playing people with the same setup is what made consoles unique from PC gaming. In PC gaming you have a standard operating system and you could use a joystick, keyboard, mouse, whatever you want with your setup.
If all consoles inter-operate we have come full circle and are simply gaming against other PC gamers.
Microsoft already sense this (and have done for a few years now), most of their 1st party titles for XboxOne can also be played on Windows. Going forward it sounds like they want to further employ this strategy to essentially make the Microsoft ecosystem the place to play games whether that be via a console (with its plug and play ease) or on Windows, or streamed to a mobile phone or tablet.
Nintendo are the outlier here though, but it will be interesting to see where Sony is positioning themselves in 5 or so years
I thought it was because consoles had games that pc did not, and once you had the console, it was convenient to play on it other games as well, even if they were also available on pc?
Nintendo has started to brick the game cartridges coming from consoles that were hacked. So you could buy a game second hand that doesn't work. Nintendo isn't in the clear yet.
Well if you buy a used switch game, that has been banned, you can't cross play online with it. You have no way of knowing if that game has been banned either. So it's related to online play.
My understanding is that each Switch cartridge has a unique key or certificate. People have begun dumping the cartridge ROMs (including certificate) and sharing these online or burning them to writable carts. Nintendo is blocking these keys from online play.
The upset seems to be over the very narrow case where someone dumps a ROM, shares it widely enough that Nintendo blocks it, then sells the genuine progenitor cartridge to an unwitting customer.
I can’t see that happening too often, it only affects online play, and it’s the exact same risk someone takes buying a used console (which are frequently blocked from online play for a number of TOS violations).
I’m fine with this.
While I am generally against DRM and over-reaching copy protection mechanisms, I think this is reasonable. Especially in the context of online play.
They've done no such thing. Blocking online play with the signatures from dumped and pirated carts, maybe. But they haven't actually bricked any systems or carts - "banned from network services" is nowhere near "bricking".
I don't think it's out of line to say Sony understands the platform business better than anyone. And I'm not just talking about console makers, I'm talking about all platforms: iOS, Android, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc etc.
Sony's first goal every generation since the PSOne has been winning game developers to their side. Game devs like large user bases, but that's only one aspect of why a developer picks a console. Sony's primary focus every generation is to get everything else right: development tools, hardware storage and performance, consistent controller design, software medium, and so on. They've had some misfires here and there (the Cell processor comes to mind), but they typically outperform their competition in all of these categories.
I think it's because Sony knows their customer isn't the gamer, it's the game developer. The game developer's customer is the gamer. Again, user base numbers attract developers, but Sony recognizes that user bases are driven by developer support. It's definitely reciprocal, but Sony's dominance comes from understanding that catering to the developer is paramount. That's why they've consistently created an environment that breeds killer apps. I can't think of another platform maker in the last 20+ years who's been better.
So after 20 years of building up that kind of leverage with developers, it doesn't make much sense to just give part of it away until game developers make it clear they need it.
I don't think this is the whole story - or at least not the right strategy for Sony anymore. Sony's PS3 was more or less a market disaster and they were able to claw their way back to #1 by selling the PS4 for $100 less than the Xbox One and taking advantage of Microsoft's terrible, self-centered move of pushing for always-on DRM. Now Sony is making the same kinds of self-centered moves with the PS4 because they are the current leader and feel like they can get away with it.
The tech in these platforms is more similar than it's ever been. The consoles are trending towards basically being stripped down multi-core PCs optimized for video and memory bandwidth - especially now with half-step upgrades like the PS4 Pro and XBOne X. For many game developers building on top of engines like Unity or Unreal, they are no longer specifically designing for XBox or PS4 - they are targeting a common engine platform and then just tweaking the game content as needed to make sure it performs well enough on each platform.
Combine this with the fact that video games cost more than ever to develop and it makes less sense than ever for a 3rd party publisher to target any single platform. In order to recoup their dev budgets and make big profits, they want as huge an install base as possible. Epic would want Fortnite to run on toasters if they though people would play it there. Platform exclusives are essentially a thing of the past except in cases where the platform holder funds the development or owns the IP.
Sony may be the current leader in building first-party, system-exclusive action games to sell their platform, but the number of people who play those games is dwarfed by the mass appeal of something like Fortnite. By gaining the reputation as "the worst place to play Fortnite" (literally the world's most popular game), they are turning off a whole new generation of customers who may swap back to Microsoft when the next console generation hits.
In my opinion, this is nothing but Sony taking it advantage of it's #1 console position to try to force people to give them more money in the short term. I'm sure Microsoft would be doing the same thing if their current market positions were reversed. But I don't think it's good for their long-term business.
On top of what you just said, a new console generation will be started (probably) in 2020. That means that both Sony and Microsoft's console hardware sales will reset to zero. If you're looking to buy the next console, will you picking up the platform that locks you into playing only with people on one platform or the platform that allows you to play with everyone? Many people will be buy the next Playstation for the exclusives yes, but Sony's walled garden will give some new buyers a pause.
Sony isn't thinking long term. Either that, or they mistakingly believe that they're crushing the competition due to their business strategy, instead of Microsoft and Nintendo both shooting themselves in the foot. Microsoft will not be making their 2013 mistakes again during the next hardware launch.
Huh? Your entire comment is confusing to be honest and misleading.
The platforms you rattled off are far, far larger than Sony. So I don't think we can follow your point on "Sony understands the platform business better than anyone" at all.
The PS'es for a lot of their history were not dev friendly at all. This point also get's thrown at the window sadly [1] [2] [3].
Which then makes "I think it's because Sony knows their customer isn't the gamer, it's the game developer ... Sony's dominance comes from understanding that catering to the developer is paramount." nonsensical as it has been demonstrated that it's not that either.
"I can't think of another platform maker in the last 20+ years who's been better."
Eh, you did a pretty good job yourself listing off far better and larger platforms at the start of your comment so I think one can easily.
“Sony's primary focus every generation is to get everything else right: development tools, hardware storage and performance, consistent controller design, software medium, and so on.”
Has the PlayStation really done consistently better than the Xbox on all those fronts? Looking at development tools, online gaming, performance and storage, I could see a case for the PS4, but did Sony do a better job with the PS2 or PS3, than Microsoft with the Xbox/Xbox 360?
> Sony understands the platform business better than anyone. And I'm not just talking about console makers, I'm talking about all platforms: iOS, Android, Steam, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc etc.
Out of curiosity, seeing as how some of those platforms are the bread and butter of companies that have market caps that far exceed Sony, what leads you to believe that?
I would chalk the market cap differences up to the differences in the industries. Internet search is more than 5 times the size of console gaming, and vastly more profitable.
I think a true quantitative comparison would have to account for market size, market share, age of the market, and typical industry profit margins.
A qualitative comparison might be more instructive, though. How many truly successful user experiences have been built on top of Facebook? Newsfeed, Messenger, and Ads? Maybe Farmville? On top of Google? Search, Gmail, Analytics and Ads? Less than a handful for both. Playstation, on the other hand, has had thousands of successful user experiences over a twenty year period.
Facebook, Google, and others often seem to have an adversarial relationship with their 3rd party developers. I could only imagine what types of amazing experiences we could be enjoying if they adopted the licensing model that's led Sony to dominate its industry for 20 years.
Game developers wouldn't increasingly be using cross-platform play if they hated it. Sony's decision has nothing to do with developers, it's because they're scared it eases the ability for people to leave their platform by removing a barrier.
I am so glad Sony doesn’t offer crossplay, especially with PC, for one simple reason: It’s nearly impossible to cheat on a PS4 game, and a console ban costs hundreds of dollars, and that protects me from being exposed to cheating; via save files, via video driver hacks, via ‘I only use it for development’ memory patchers. (Network manipulation cheating still occurs, but that can’t be used without other players reporting you, and is an issue on all platforms.)
Sony happily permits crossplay with those mustachio-curling memory-patching dreaded PC players. Fortnite does allow crossplay between PC and PS4 and Mac and mobile. PC/PS4 crossplay is also available in Rocket League and some other games. The only gate is between PS4/Xbox and PS4/Switch--and both platforms seem very much on par with the PS4 in terms of anticheat protection.
There is no real argument to this except "Sony can be a dick, so Sony will be a dick." You can take off your cape now.
I’m glad that Fortnite and Rocket League have found success with crossplay, as that indicates that Sony has made crossplay possible.
I’m sad to see you dismissing “authoritarian control over a platform” as “being a dick”, though. I prefer my society less authoritarian and my gaming platforms (and coding guidelines) more authoritarian, but I guess this isn’t the right venue to discuss that dissonance.
Technically no: there's exploits for lower versions of the PS4 firmware. I don't think there's anything out for the Xbox One so you're still good there. The Switch is wide open but Nintendo are quick on the banhammer if you go online with a modded console.
It's actually because logging in to a Fortnite account on PS4 irreversibly locks that account to Sony's walled garden.
I created my Fortnite account on PC and played there. Then I logged in on PS4, and played there. Now when I try to log in on Switch, I'm not able to. Here's the actual error message given:
"This Fortnite account is associated with a platform which does not allow it to operate on Switch. Neither the Fortnite website nor Epic Customer Service are able to change this. To play Fortnite on Switch, please create a new account."
The problem is that even disassociating the account from Sony won't then allow me to use my Fortnite account outside of Sony's walled garden. The account is permanently tainted by PlayStation.
Most importantly, the irreversibility of Sony's taint upon your account isn't disclosed until after the fact. It's a classic anti-user misdeed.
Anyway, Hacker News seems like the right place to ponder SaaSS user account foibles.