News Sony caves, launches Fortnite cross-platform beta

Translation:

For 24 years we got away with inflicting tremendous damage to gaming as a whole. However in the run up to the unveiling of the PS5 we wanted to generate some positive PR and so are doing the right thing for once, don't get used to it, we'll be back to acting like d**ks shortly.

 

Further Translation:

The beancounters have counted the beans and have concluded we're losing money by continuing with the policy.

 

Wait... I thought Rocket League was cross platform?

 

Ahhh, I see. Thanks for clarifying.

 

So here's what I imagine happened.

Epic handed Sony a schedule for the next year of Fortnite updates and releases, all of them showing PS4 getting stuff months behind if at all. When Sony got upset Epic responded by saying that all the cross platform releases needed to roll out at the same time, whilst Sony's platform would be getting updates as and when. Since it was by far the smaller of the two player bases Epic would not be spending extra money keeping it on par with the 'main' release unless Sony covered the cost. Faced with being left out of the crossover events and the advertising that goes with them, Sony caved.

 

This is funny, because I was under the impression the lack of Playstation/XBox crossplay was due to Microsoft back when the first PS games that could talk to their Windows versions happened.

 

Will this fix the switch issue? Or has that been solved separately?

 

It was. Whoever is the incumbent in that generation basically gets to do what they want, and the runner-up has to pull out all the stops. Last time it was Sony trying to make the PS3 more attractive by offering cross-play, this time it's Microsoft with the XB1.
Nintendo do Nintendo things, which can mean anything from cross-platform-crossplay to you-can't-move-over-the-games-you-bought-even-though-they're-compatible to you-can-have-online-multiplayer-but-need-a-seperate-device-for-voicechat, or indeed all at the same time (e.g. Fortnite using the built-in Switch mic input for voice-chat, while Splatoon 2 requires an additional app running on a smartphone, a dedicated combiner cable & headset, and a sacrifice to Shub-Niggurath).

 

Also Microsoft was absolutely desperate to get some positive publicity due to the lingering stench of the initial unveiling of the Xbone having gone over about as well as an Atari financial report due to the whole most draconian DRM ever created debacle...
Which even after they back-pedalled like a Peter Molyneux who had promised something will forever be a black mark in Microsoft history.

 

Next step is having to buy a Christmas present for each of SN's young. And there are literally a thousand of those.

 

Microsoft's history is an enormous black smear across the pages of several books, I'm sure they can live with it.