Fortnite is soon releasing on Android and iOS, which will bring cross-play between mobile devices, PC, and Xbox One. What is missing though? Sony is still not into the idea of accepting cross-play with Xbox One.
A funny incident happened on Twitter yesterday, where a fan tweeted Xbox boss, Phil Spencer letting him know that the community wants to see Xbox One and PlayStation 4 cross-play for Fortnite. Spencer’s answer was “Me 2”. Things got even crazier when Fortnite, developer Epic Games has replied too with a “We 3”, meaning that Sony is the one to blame here.
After that, a Microsoft representative has told Kotaku that, even though their cross-play talks with Nintendo have worked out perfectly, Sony is still not co-operating on those terms. He stated:
“Microsoft has long been a leading voice in encouraging the adoption of cross-platform play and the potential of connecting players across PC, mobile and all consoles. We’ve worked closely with Nintendo to allow cross-network play between Xbox One and Switch and our offer to do the same with PlayStation players still holds. For any other questions regarding ‘Fortnite’ cross-network play between Xbox and PlayStation, please reach out to Epic or Sony directly.”
What’s weird is Sony explained that the reason they won’t allow cross-play is because of the company supposedly has a responsibility to its install base, along with cross-platform play being a commercial decision between Sony and its shareholders. That would include all competitors and not only Xbox consoles. However, Fortnite cross-play between PC and PlayStation 4 is already available, making us wonder why Sony holds back without actually explaining why.
While Microsoft is ready to embrace it but, Sony considers Cross-Platform Play a security risk for its console and PSN and Microsoft is quite critical of Sony’s logic behind not allowing it. According to Xbox head, Phil Spencer, the argument Sony is presenting is not healthy for the game industry. He added that user security is among Microsoft’s the top priorities.
