There’s an air of inevitability about Jim Ryan being the first to comment on cross-console play, and Sony’s decision not to support it. The head honcho at PlayStation Europe has been in the furnace a bit after he made some controversial comments about backwards compatibility, and while we doubt any of the other executives on the Japanese giant’s payroll would have given a much better answer, the web’s going to get some mileage out of Ryan’s response.
Asked by Eurogamer.net whether Sony’s just not playing ball, here’s what he had to say: “We're always open to conversations with any developer or publisher who wants to talk about it. Unfortunately it's a commercial discussion between ourselves and other stakeholders, and I'm not going to get into the detail of that on this particular instance.”
Ryan then went on to say that, in Minecraft’s case especially, Sony has a responsibility to its install base. “We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe. Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it's something we have to think about very carefully.” In other words: please think of the children.
Eurogamer.net rebutted that Nintendo is famously the most proactive platform holder when it comes to child protection, and it’s signed up for cross-console support. “Yeah, that's true. Everybody has to take their own decisions. We'll do that. Like I say, we have no philosophical stance against cross-play at all,” Ryan reiterated.
So, is Sony shutting the door on cross-console play completely? “I don't think anything is ever a done deal,” he concluded. “Anybody who is dogmatic in that manner is typically a fool. That said, to my knowledge, there is no live conversation ongoing at the moment.” In other words: if you want this and you feel passionately about it, make sure your voice is heard and don’t give PlayStation another cent until it changes its stance.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 22
In other words, if someone on another platform makes the inevitable 'cock' or 'swastika' building in Minecraft and complain, Sony can't ban them or 'protect' its userbase from these things.
Of course they could get round that by using a disclaimer - like enter at your own risk...
So kids will go from Minecraft on a tablet and then bin their friends and get a PS4 to play it. Surely they are more likely to go with a competitor so they can still play with their friends before they finally upgrade. I always thought consumers liked more choice. They don't like it when you limit their options.
That Nintendo burn was epic. I'm surprised he didn't answer "Ed Norton."
Well they need to have those discussions quicker, it would be great to have bigger online communities with no platform boundaries.
@BraveFencerZan ... I think those "discussions" translate to "we don't want to do it".
Right all this talk about playing with your friends on other consoles or pc, is that even true? Will someone on Xbox live be able to connect to a Nintendo friend code or vice versa. Or is it just a case of a larger pool to simply get random matches? If it's the latter then who really cares
@carlos82 It's just private matches in Rocket League I believe. Not sure about Minecraft.
EG are really starting to p*ss me off these last few weeks. Constant berating of most things Sony. Slated their e3 presentation and now all the nit-picking. Unfollowed them on all their SM pages.
Language - get2sammyb
First Minecraft now Rocket League.
Sony....what? And Jim Ryan? Someone at Sony is probably looking for a sock to shove in his mouth right now...
@get2sammyb well that still doesn't seem a big deal to me, I love Rocket League and at this point I suspect most people are already playing with their friends on their platform of choice. I mean if it was fully functional then I can see the argument but the Switch at least doesn't even have voice chat.
Don't get me wrong I'd love some way of fully connecting between PSN and Live for parties and such but for any half hearted measures on let's be honest pretty old games at this point, then I'm not too bothered.
@daveofduncan let's not forget the Horizon debacle where they didn't even give it a recommended, before proceeding to praise it constantly for the next few weeks. Reading their articles this week it wouldn't have mattered how many great games Sony has available for PS4/VR they were so enamoured with that X thing and the rather lonely Forza 7 exclusive
Uh-huh.
I suppose they opted out of cross-play with Rocket League for the same reason.
Sony is getting arrogant and anti-consumerish again.
@daveofduncan I dunno. The question needed to be asked and EG had access. I certainly would have asked it if I had an interview slot.
Can't wait till this non issue will blow over, we're right in the middle of E3 and instead of talking about games we're talking about a large group of players not been able to play with another large group of players on just 2 of the thousand games they can be playing right now. Also EG are starting to get on my bloody nerves at this point, they want to take lessons off Jason Schreier because while he was finding out what went wrong with Mass Effect EG were making dumb YouTube videos and spending 4 articles talking about a bloody GPU.
It seems to be a cromulent argument.
@Ralizah Sony already support cross-play with pc, they just doesn't want to cross-play with switch and xbox1. Like microsoft in the previous generation when their xbox live is leading. And the only reason nintendo want to cross-play is because they have the least amount of online user.
@DLB3 Yup, where's the outrage when microsoft denied sony the ability to cross-play with psn in the previous generation.
I'm weighing in here and it's all nonsense.
Every kid needs a PC for homework these days. That's a fact. I've got kids.
Play Minecraft on that.
Case closed.
read: all we care about is our shareholders, customers don't matter to us
I mean, I understand that people own different systems, but i just don't see the big hassle for so few of the games that fall under the cross platform banner. There's what, a half a dozen big ticket games that support it right now? If Sony doesn't want to do it, they should just come out and say it. People will whine and make stupid comments, and then a week later it'll be forgotten.
If there's one meme that's overstayed its welcome, it's "Arrogant Sony" when they do one thing people don't fully agree with. Really tedious, and really lazy.
Not Sony's concern, why should they bother to support their direct competitors in providing a giant pool of players and creating a more stable online experience. It's not a charity.
Sony can't really win this one. They lose if they say yes and if they say no. Microsoft though has been trying to stir this up for a while...I remember they addressing Sony about cross-platform a few months ago.
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