Sony's answers regarding Cross-play are pretty shitty. Also clearly business driven. And I would love cross-play on really big titles like Battlefield and so on.
But I'm not sure it really is like flipping a switch.
And I don't actually blame Sony. I'm not sure MS's course correction would have happen if the Xbox One performed like the PS4. This move from the xbox being a platform to kind of a service is a result of that and yeah it has benefited us, but it's really happening because thier box did shitty.
Hi all,
CEO Of Chucklefish here, we just launched Wargroove with crossplay between PC, Switch and Xbox so I wanted to chime in.
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.
Also, while I have issues with Nintendo and how they handle online anything, they are in a similar position as Sony. They aren't dominating sales completely, but their hardware and first party software is selling incredibly well. They are in a position to say "crossplay? Lmao no, buy a Switch to play with your friends or more strangers! asshole."
But Nintendo hasn't done that because....cross play will never take away potential sales, it'll make online communities bigger and last longer, and listening to consumer needs is pretty easy as a successful company.
Sony's leadership in the past few years has been abysmal. Microsoft and Nintendo have earned good will back after monumental fuck ups. Sony's complacency regarding adding value to their hardware, software distribution, and needs of consumers, is pathetic.
I don't really buy that it's a flip a switch thing. I really doubt there's not going to be any leg work to get something like Battlefield or CoD to run cross play. That dosen't make any sense.
Nintendo dosen't do that because they've consistently say they aren't in the same market as the PS, PC, or Xbox. Also they don't seem to give a shit about online or see it as something they can leverage anyway.
Where has it been proven that cross play dosen't hurt sales? What is possibly the number one question asked when someone asks should you get a PS4 or an Xbox?
Which ones do your friends have?
Which system has the online base factors into plenty of people's buying habits. "Gotta buy a PS4 because my friends have it and I want to play with them". "Gotta buy the PS4 version because thats where my friends are". "Gotta have PS+ SUB along with XBL because my friends have playstations". These are honestly things that have come up among my friends and myself a lot. And if all these games had cross play it would really effect my purchase habits.
I really doubt MS of all people would be all consumer friendly if XBL was the top dog and the main place to play Call of Duty. They get to be the nice underdog now, but it's just another corporate move. Xbox has bombed as a platform, so move it to a service that exisits beyond the main hardware.
MS has earned goodwill? I guess, thier platform still seems devoid of actual quality games, but I guess BC of old games I already played and positive consumer choices like cross buy help. That cross buy that only serves to keep you on thier platform and buy only directly from them.
And in the end all these things are pretty irrelevant to me when it comes down to the fact that I'm going to use my Playstation more because there's actual games I want to play.