In an interview with German site GameStar, Todd Howard announced Fallout 76 won’t feature cross-play support for PS4. Throwing shade on Sony in the process, he revealed the Japanese gaming giant is not ‘not as helpful as everyone would like, but we’ll see what happens in the future’, when asked why cross-play wasn’t to feature as part of Bethesda’s upcoming open-world multiplayer survival game.
This follows on from the Fortnite
Sony, hit with a wave of complaints from PS4 owners, retorted rather nonchalantly with thinly-veiled concern for the financial implications of cross-play for their gaming empire. Former boss of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley, in a now deleted tweet explained Sony ‘didn’t like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on a Playstation’.
Sony later announced plans were afoot to investigate the matter after player backlash. Sony’s Shawn Layden told Eurogamer ‘we’re hearing it. We’re looking at a lot of the possibilities. You can imagine that the circumstances around that affect a lot more than just one game. I’m confident we’ll get to a solution which will be understood and accepted by our gaming community, while at the same time supporting our business’.
What form this ‘solution’ will take is unknown right now, but the hope is that Sony will eventually see the error of its ways. Howard’s comments will only help to emphasize this.
The controversy wasn’t all cries of dismay as Xbox and Nintendo teamed up to release a Minecraft cross-play trailer poking subtle fun at and capitalize on Sony’s woes. A sweet Twitter exchange between the two companies ensued.
Fallout 76 will of course be cross-play compatible across other consoles and PC. It releases on November 14 and is set to feature targeted nuclear attacks, base building, and PvP battles.
