It has finally happened. Sony has relented and has announced that will be enabling cross-play for Fortnite Battle Royale. This means that PlayStation 4 owners will be able to play with/against Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players. In its official blog, the company noted that the feature is in open beta for now. “Following a comprehensive evaluation process, SIE has identified a path toward supporting cross-platform features for select third party content. We recognize that PS4 players have been eagerly awaiting an update, and we appreciate the community’s continued patience as we have navigated through this issue to find a solution,” the company noted in its post.
Support for cross-platform play also means that Fortnite players will be able to transfer their progress, gameplay and any V-bucks that might have accumulated. However, in case some players already created separate accounts, the developer of Fortnite, Epic Games have announced that there are working on a way to merge accounts. This feature is scheduled to be available in November. Further, it is also working on a way to unlink a console from one Fortnite account and relink it to another. This particular feature is said to be available in the coming days. As far as other titles, Sony is keeping things quiet.
The company notes that this is a major policy change for it and it is now in the planning process across the organisation to support this change. It is noted that Sony will update the community about details such as beta time frame as well as what this would mean for other titles. Hopefully, the company will open up to more titles such as Rocket League, and maybe even PUBG once is available on the console. Sony writes, “today, the communities around some games have evolved to the point where cross-platform experiences add significant value to players.
In recognition of this, we have completed a thorough analysis of the business mechanics required to ensure that the PlayStation experience for our users remains intact today, and in the future, as we look to open up the platform.” This news, combined with the recent announcement that Microsoft was adding mouse and keyboard support to the Xbox points towards a blurring distinction between different gaming hardware that is available to consumers. Overall, this should benefit gamers in the long run and should reduce the friendly rivalry that exists between the different console gamers as well as the so called PC master race.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.