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Fortnite Briefly Allowed PlayStation 4 And Xbox One Crossplay
While crossplay between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One should be a technical hurdle, it seems the only thing stopping it was a will rather than a way, as Epic Games has accidentally proven with Fortnite.
As reported by Eurogamer, posters on Reddit for Epic Games' world-building shooter Fortnite began getting curious about the various tags they were seeing in-game. One user noticed that a space in a name on PS4, which should not be possible, as spaces are not permitted in PSN usernames. After some investigation, the posters confirmed it was an Xbox tag.
After that discovery, tons of other reports came pouring in from people who had noticed tags, arranged to play together, or just wanted to test it out. What made this more complicated is that both the Xbox One and PS4 versions can crossplay with PC, but not each other, so it took video evidence of Xbox and PS4 players playing together using that hardware to convince skeptics.
Epic commented on the subject, confirming that crossplay between the two systems was turned on, but that it was done in error. This has confirmed, much likely to Sony's dismay, that crossplay is simply a switch to flip that developers could do if Sony and Microsoft allowed them to do so. A little while ago, we wrote about Sony's stance on crossplay being understandable but short-sighted and evidence of its ease is not helping their case against it.
We reached out for comment to both Sony and Microsoft. Microsoft responded by directing inquiries about Fortnite to Epic, while Sony has not commented yet. We will update the story when they do.
With crossplay now wandering off from the realm of the theoretical for the console rivals, what games would you want to see Microsoft and Sony agree on if they had to only do it on a game-by-game basis?
[Source: Eurogamer]
Our Take
Sony is increasingly finding themselves on an island when it comes to crossplay, but this case is definitely curious. It seems crossplay between the two systems is just one decision away from being viable, which could massively shake up the way people buy consoles.
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