Fortnite is out now on the Nintendo Switch and it seems the only one not excited by this is Sony. Apparently there is a PS4 lock on the game. In other words, if you had signed in to your Fortnite account on the PS4, you can’t sign into the same account on the Switch version of the game. It even works the other way around as well – if you logged into your Fortnite account on Switch first, you won’t be able to sign in to the same account on the PS4.
.@PlayStation, fix this.
Not allowing me to sign-in to Fortnite Switch with my Epic account because it's linked to PS4 is tone deaf and points more to fear than market dominance.
AdvertisementIt does the opposite of what you want — it makes me think about moving to Xbox for Fortnite. pic.twitter.com/D9xqv9aWdF
— Greg Miller (@GameOverGreggy) June 12, 2018
In a hugely upvoted thread on Reddit, u/MayorMeow calls for more players to voice their discontent to Sony with the way they chose to handle this. Though considering that Sony also doesn’t support Fortnite cross-play with the Xbox One, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll decide to change their stance on the matter any time soon.
What’s particularly infuriating about this PS4 account lock is that it’s highly likely the infrastructure is setup such that the lock can be easily enabled or disabled. With the crossplay situation, there was actually a time when Epic accidentally allowed PS4 and Xbox One cross-play due to a “configuration issue” that was quickly corrected. I’m fairly certain the account lock could be removed just as easily as fixing a similar “configuration issue.”
The root problem here is definitively Sony. In a tweet to Sony, Twitter user James asks whether there was any chance for cross-play between Xbox One and the PS4. It actually received direct replies from both Microsoft and Epic Games. Take a look at what they said.
@XboxP3 hi. I wanted to ask that can XB1 and PS4 players play together in Fortnite? We really want cross-play system between XB1 and PS4 :/
— Jal (ง ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ)ง (@jalmmv) March 10, 2018
We 3!
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) March 11, 2018
Microsoft and even Epic Games themselves want to see cross-play! Seeing that Sony doesn’t have any problems with PC and PS4 cross-play, it looks to me like they are afraid of some kind of competition/threat from other consoles. It’s as if they think their customers might jump ship completely simply because they experienced Fortnite on a different console.
Trying to fight the growing trend of greater cross-platform accessibility and connectivity is like trying to stop a flood with your bare hands. Sony is going to lose this battle eventually – why not save some face by giving players what they want right now? A business plan that leads to angering a huge percentage of your customer base is always bad.
