Sony has been catching lots of flak for blocking cross-play between the PlayStation 4 and other consoles. The gaming giant says they have business reasons for the decision, and few publishers are stepping forward and involving themselves in the argument.
Now, it seems that Bethesda Games’ studio director and executive producer is breaking that pattern. In a recent interview with German website Gamestar.de, Howard was asked about crossplay for the upcoming Fallout 76.
“We would love to do that, but right now that’s not possible,” he said. “Sony isn’t being as helpful as we want them to be.”
At this point, it’s still not even clear if there will be cross-play between the PC version and the game’s other console releases. But it seems like one thing is for certain: it’s not happening between consoles.
Jim Ryan, PlayStation’s head of sales and marketing, suggests that the cross-play block for Minecraft is due to the game’s demographics.
“Minecraft – the demographic playing that, you know as well as I do, it’s all ages but it’s also very young,” he said. “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.”
For Fortnite, Sony was less clear.
“We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience,” they said. “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. We 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.”
Fallout 76 is set for release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 14.