Sony Interactive Entertainment has been dragging its feet this generation on cross-play. Until Fortnite came around and essentially forced its hand, it was simply unwilling to play ball. And even now, after Fortnite forced it into an increasingly small corner lit up with a huge spotlight, it's still reluctant to fully embrace the feature like Nintendo and Microsoft have. In fact, at the moment, there's only a few games that even support the feature, and according to multiple devs, Sony isn't the most willing partner in this regard. That said, one developer believes it's only a matter of time before this changes.

Speaking to Gaming Bolt, Fallen Tree Games' Lewis Boadle believes Sony's reluctance to participate in the cross-play revolution will eventually come to an end. Further, Boadle believes Sony's foot-dragging so far has been a business decision, and has nothing to do with a lack of ability to actually implement and support the feature.

“I think their reasons are probably business-driven more than technology-driven, but if the demand from the community is strong, I’m sure they’ll eventually soften,” said Boadle. "Fortnite has certainly helped."

Boadle continued:

“I don’t see how the option to play with your friends – no matter what console they own – could ever be a bad thing. Whatever technical challenges stand in the way, I think we are getting to the point where they need to be overcome.”

Personally, I agree with Boadle's take that Sony's hesitance is born out of nothing other than a business decision. It's the market leader, and cross-play benefits its competition more than it. However, at this point, the bad PR it has taken over cross-play probably is way worse than whatever advantage it would have sacrificed by playing nice on cross-play.

Yet again, we've all heard the stories of how messy PSN is and how difficult it's to do certain things in it. Just look how long it's taking for name changes to come.

Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Do you agree with Boadle? Will Sony eventually soften on cross-play when next-gen arrives?



Posted: Apr 01, 2019 7:35 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/04/01/playstation-ps4-cross-play-sony/