The discussion around cross-play continues.
Developers and publishers are speaking out against Sony’s lack of cross-platform support, despite what Sony has publicly stated about the process.
Earlier this month, War Thunder and the new CEO of Hi-Rez, Stewart Chisam, asked Sony publicly to include cross-play support in their games through posts on Twitter.
Shortly after, in an interview with Game Informer, Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios chairman and former SIE president and CEO, Shawn Layden, said that Sony was open to cross-play but that publishers and developers just needed to take the necessary steps to get there.
“People keep saying, ‘Why doesn’t Sony allow more people to have it?’ We’re open for business on this one. All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we’ve learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don’t believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they’re open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well,” Layden told Game Informer.
On Tuesday, the CEO of Chucklefish, who is the publisher of Wargroove – a recently launched game that offers cross-play between PC, Switch and Xbox One – said in a thread on Reset Era that they did everything in their power to request cross-play. Despite their efforts that were in line with what Layden said, Chucklefish was told that it would not happen.
The CEO of Chucklefish’s post reads: “We made many requests for crossplay (both through our account manager and directly with higher ups) all the way up until release month. We were told in no uncertain terms that it was not going to happen. From our side, we can *literally* toggle a switch and have it working. Of course policy work might be more complicated for Sony. Just wanted to provide some balance on the issue and say that it certainly isn’t a question of developers having not contacted their account managers or having dropped the ball. We were told no.”
The thread on ResetEra began in response to Layden’s interview with Game Informer, with many users posting inquiries about whether or not Sony is purposely being selective with their cross-play games.
In an official post on PlayStation’s blog from late September 2018, it is stated that Sony Interactive Entertainment would be taking the steps toward cross-play support for select third party content.
“Following a comprehensive evaluation process, SIE has identified a path toward supporting cross-platform features for select third party content,” the first sentence in the post read.
Earlier in September, Sony CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida said at Germany’s IFA electronics convention that, “On cross-platform, our way of thinking is always that PlayStation is the best place to play.”
He added in that Sony had opened some games for cross-play, but that their decisions are based on what they feel gives users the best experience.
In a recent interview with CNET, Layden discussed why Sony is passing on their attendance at E3 this year, a decision that came as a surprise for many gamers, and which we have some theories as to why they are skipping the big event.
IGN has reached out for comment to all of these developers and publishers and will update this article with any information.
Jessie is a news writer at IGN and would love to play with her Xbox pals in Destiny 2. Follow her on Twitter @jessieannwade.
