There's probably more info. behind the paywall.
www.axios.com
Sony wants cross-platform multiplayer in more games
PlayStation notoriously dragged its feet in allowing multiplayer games with multiple devices.
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Jim Ryan: Sony wants cross-play in more games – Policies are consistent across all publishers and partners
- Thread starter nolifebr
- Start date
Short article with practically nothing in it? Only takeaway was:
- Regarding "Borderlands," Ryan told Axios he didn't want to talk about a "live business issue with a long-standing partner," but noted "our policies are consistent across all of the publishers."
The article seems to end pretty abruptly in the middle of a bullet point list. Further down, does it talk about what they're actually doing to change that or is it just Jim Ryan saying that more cross-play would be nice to have?
- Regarding "Borderlands," Ryan told Axios he didn't want to talk about a "live business issue with a long-standing partner," but noted "our policies are consistent across all of the publishers."
Of course. Pathetic if you ask me.
Translation:
"We support cross play and encourage it so long as you pay us. We treat all publishers the same"
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OP
OP
It's quite funny to see that this myth has already come true for many people. Sony asks for financial compensation if X number of players are spending X amount of money on another platform while PlayStation remains where they plays the most.
If a player plays Fortnite on PlayStation for so many hours but buys skins on the Xbox Store, Epic has to pass a % of the sale over to Sony. (And this only happens with companies that make a certain amount of money per year)
And that's only in games that have in-game sales. Games like Tetris Effect that don't have these kind of things, I don't think Sony gets involved at all.
Why does he comeout and say shit like this when it's clearly not true?
Real 🤡 energy coming from Jimbo here.
Real 🤡 energy coming from Jimbo here.
So then they'll charge all publishers and indie developers equally to how epic got a deal for crossplay?
Damn what a deal, how about stop being this daft trying to scrounge more money out of everyone for a feature that benefits everyone equally.
Especially when your competition has completely eliminated those barriers.
Damn what a deal, how about stop being this daft trying to scrounge more money out of everyone for a feature that benefits everyone equally.
Especially when your competition has completely eliminated those barriers.
Yep, feels ridiculously blatant considering that we know Sony is the only one with this policy
I'm not sure if the single line of...
We support and encourage cross-play," Ryan told us, noting cross-play with PlayStation works on numerous big games such as "Fortnite," "Rocket League," "Call of Duty," "Minecraft," and, soon, "Destiny 2. That number will continue to grow," he said.
Really says a lot here.
If that actually is the entire quote that this article is based upon.
We support and encourage cross-play," Ryan told us, noting cross-play with PlayStation works on numerous big games such as "Fortnite," "Rocket League," "Call of Duty," "Minecraft," and, soon, "Destiny 2. That number will continue to grow," he said.
Really says a lot here.
If that actually is the entire quote that this article is based upon.
The problem is that it can result in the publisher choosing not to do crossplay at all. Also sound like this policy applies to everyone, including indies
This was my understanding of the leaked clause as well, but I see so many people regurgitating "sony charges for cross-play" that I have to wonder if there was additional language in the leak that I just missed. Was there more, or was it literally the clause quoted in this article? Because if it's just this clause, then no game where you have to buy DLC on the same platform you play it on (i.e., most games) would be affected by this clause.
That is a thing no one else does because it basically shits all over your platform-developer business relationship. Sony can afford to do that because they have such a huge market share but there's a difference between having the power to do something and having the actual moral justification for it. This is a pure zero-sum type of thing that has no benefit to either the players or the game creators.
It's literally a decision between less money for publishers or less features for gamers. It's like Ford expecting a kick back every time one of their cars gets an oil change at Jiffy Lube instead of at the dealership.
As far as I was aware there was nothing else from that specific leak. The news folk immediately ran with "they charge for cross play" based upon that slide, when the slide was very obviously about cross-buy, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense at all.
There was some emails leaked where Epic talked about paying to make Cross-Play/Buy happen, but I don't believe it actually confirmed any agreements or money passing hands.
So as to that original slide, and what all the fuss was about, no, it was only about cross-buy and not at all about cross-play. People will however run with that idea forever now, and there's always going to be certain people who like to spread misinformation.
Much like we don't really know the Borderlands issue, according to the wiki on it there are a lot of game's on PlayStation that are cross-played from massive publishers to indie developers. I can't imagine they are all paying fees for cross-play, especially not constant running costs.
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When you say cross buy you mean cross-progression?
As in buying dlc or currency on one platform will unlock that content on every platform?
Tim Sweeney confirmed that they actually have and do pay Sony. Also actual legal agreements were also leaked.
Once you accept terms, you are also bound by those terms, it's not limited to single game. Maybe your this game doesn't have mtxn, but your other games do.
Sony has feature/technical parity clause. Maybe you do cross-play on other game on PC/Xbox only.
Maybe Sony invokes parity clause, requiring you maybe start paying Sony to have cross-play.
Oh I believe that Jim Ryan would like to have more games with cross play, it's good business for Playstation after all, I just don't believe he's doing nearly as much as he could be to get more publishers interested in including cross play in their titles.
Greedy Sony is back.
Greedy Sony is back.
Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear. It's more about the actual buying than the progression.
Do you have a link? I haven't read much on it since the original court documents had come out.
As far as I could see, he said Sony is the only one that charges, which was in relation to the judge asking him about it and the specific slide that came up. But we know that the slide is cross-buying of dlc and not cross play. Fortnights cross-play is also different than other games because it included both cross-progression and cross-buying of content from the very beginning, which would fall under the released slide, and not just plain old cross-play that most other games use.
I'd also point out I'm not defending Sony, this is just my understanding on their stance on cross-play.
Did he confirm that they paid Sony simply to enable cross-play or that they had to pay Sony under this specific clause which would be triggered by lots of users buying fortnite stuff somewhere other than the PlayStation store?
I mean, it is, objectively, untrue that they charge developers and publishers to enable cross-play.
There's a fee associated with cross-platform revenue under very specific conditions, but that's only if your game also has cross-platform purchases and the specific clause is met in a given calendar month. Cross-play in and of itself can be enabled without a "fee".
I'm sure that it's an issue for some devs and publisher, and not saying it's okay, but it boggles the mind that people think the fee is simply for enabling cross-play.
Hard to believe so many people are up in arms about Tim Sweeney essentially having to pay his taxes to the platform holder that makes him a massive percentage of his revenue.
I couldn't give a shit about CP and always turn it off but, it still needs to be an option on every game, so let's see the goods Jim.
The fact that there are games I like where I can't play with friends on the sony consoles but I can with xbox and switch tells me that is a big fat blowie.
I mean, PS2 was barely a coherent mess at that point, I'm sure they let just about anything go at that point as it was barely something you could call a service for them to have a say over.
Clearly at some point between PS3/PS4 they developed a crossplay policy and it obviously wasn't as clearcut as everyone seemed to think.
With PS4/XBO era everyone was calling out Xbox for being reluctant on crossplay and after getting rubbed in the mud enough, they finally changed their stance publically and at that point we also found out Sony's crossplay policy wasn't as open as we thought. So sure, they had some type of crossplay stuff at some point but it was not open between consoles.
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Yup. That really is a ridiculous stance especially when you have publishers and MS so openly embracing it.
I started out this gen planning on buying all my cross-platform titles (that aren't on Game Pass) on PS5.
Now I'm buying all of them for Series because of shit like this.
Laughable to try to spin this.
Now I'm buying all of them for Series because of shit like this.
Laughable to try to spin this.