Fortnite was officially released on the Nintendo Switch a couple of days ago and it became an instant success resulting in the game being downloaded over
2 million times from the Nintendo eShop. But not every fan was happy given that a vocal majority of players—that had previously played the game on their PlayStation 4—realised that they couldn't access their Epic Games account on their Nintendo Switch.
The problem comes from Sony's policy about cross-play gaming, especially after yesterday's statement by Nintendo of America CEO—Reggie Fils-Aimé—that said
Nintendo were all for embracing cross-play if the developers thought it was in the game's best interests. After remaining silent for two whole days, Sony has finally released a statement about the cross-play controversy and it won't make players happy.
According to
BBC News, Sony released a statement regarding the cross-play issue saying that they "
are always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience", which isn't that further from the truth but this doesn't really equate to caring about the gaming community as a whole.
"
With more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we've built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles", according to the statement—which is already beginning to sound like they are only supporting the game on their platform alone. That said, Sony does support cross-play as long as it isn't a competing home console, as the statement added that they "
also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms", to which another spokeswoman added that they "
have nothing further to add beyond this at this point".
Sony are shooting themselves on the foot right now, especially because other companies have no issue allowing players to cross-play using other consoles, or to play with friends that own a different console—which is likely to make a significant amount of players to turn their back on them and decide to game on a different console, at least when it comes to Fortnite and other games that offer cross-play.