In a recent interview with Game Informer, Sony Interactive Entertainment chairman Shawn Layden suggested we haven’t seen more games take advantage of cross-play on PS4 because developers and publishers simply aren’t requesting the feature.
He explained Sony is “open for business on this one” following the successful implementation of Fortnite cross-play, and that companies keen on the idea just need to chat with their PlayStation account manager to get the ball rolling.
It all sounds fairly straightforward, but one high-profile developer claims the situation is anything but. Responding to Layden’s comments on ResetEra, the CEO of Wargroove developer-publisher Chucklefish claimed Sony has repeatedly stopped the studio from pursuing the idea.
“We just launched Wargroove with cross-play between PC, Switch and Xbox so I wanted to chime in,’ said the company’s chief exec, Finn Brice. “We made many requests for cross-play (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.”
It’s a curious exchange that suggests Sony still isn’t smitten with the idea of letting its users mingle with players on rival consoles, at least when it comes to smaller titles that aren’t Fortnite or Rocket League.
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2019