Bethesda Softworks issues an ultimatum to Sony over PS4 crossplay

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• Microsoft and Sony directly compete in the video game
  market, where the PlayStation 4 has a commanding lead over the
  Xbox One in hardware sales numbers.
• Starting in 2017, Microsoft has been pushing the
  concept of “cross-platform” play — the ability to play games
  like “Minecraft,” “Fortnite” and more with friends on PC,
  smartphone, and even Nintendo’s Switch.
• Sony refuses to allow games on the PlayStation 4 to
  work with games on Microsoft’s Xbox One and Nintendo’s
  Switch.
• Both video game fans and game makers are publicly
  pushing back on Sony’s stance — and now, “The Elder Scrolls:
  Legends” publisher Bethesda Softworks has issued an
  ultimatum.

The massive video game publisher Bethesda Softworks — the company
behind franchises like “Fallout,” “The Elder Scrolls,” and “DOOM”
— just issued a major ultimatum to Sony.

The issue at hand is seemingly simple: Bethesda has a game coming
to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch called “The
Elder Scrolls: Legends.” Bethesda wants “Legends” players on all
consoles to be able to play the game with each other, and for
their progress to carry over if they change platforms. 

“The Elder Scrolls: Legends” is a competitive card game, similar
to Blizzard’s “Hearthstone” — it’s the same game across all
platforms, visually and gameplay-wise, whether you’re playing it
on an iPhone or on a PC. The game is turn-based, so it doesn’t
require precise, reaction-based controls.

In so many words: There’s no technical reason it
couldn’t work across competing platforms, like the Xbox One and
PlayStation 4. 

Bethesda
Softworks

“The way the game works right now on Apple, Google, Steam, and
Bethesda.net, it doesn’t matter where you buy your stuff, if you
play it on another platform that stuff is there. It doesn’t
matter what platform you play on, you play against everyone else
who is playing at that moment,” Bethesda senior VP Pete
Hines
said in a recent interview with Game Informer.

Sony, however, won’t allow publishers like Bethesda Softworks to
enable this type of functionality in their games.

Even “Fortnite” publisher Epic Games
isn’t allowed to enable cross-platform play between Sony’s
PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One (let alone Nintendo’s
Switch). 

If the biggest game in the world isn’t getting around Sony’s
blockade, how will “The Elder Scrolls: Legends”? Potentially by
skipping Sony’s PlayStation 4 altogether.

“It is our intention in order for the game to come out, it has to
be those things on any system,” Hines said. “We cannot have a
game that works one way across everywhere else except for on this
one thing.” 

By saying as much, Hines and Bethesda drew a line in the sand
with Sony’s cross-platform policy: Allow cross-platform play and
progress, or we’ll skip the PS4 altogether.

It’s a small move in the short term, but it’s part of a growing
wave of backlash to a long-held policy in the video game
business.

It all started with “Minecraft”

The Microsoft-owned blockbuster is available on pretty much
everything that plays games, from consoles to phones to
handhelds.

Microsoft — maker of the Xbox One, and direct competitor to
Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Nintendo’s Switch — publishes
“Minecraft” on Sony and Nintendo (and Apple and Google) platforms
in addition to its own Xbox consoles.

More importantly, even though Microsoft owns “Minecraft,” the
game can be played across competing devices. “Minecraft” players
on Xbox One can join up with players on iPhone, Nintendo Switch,
Android, and PC/Mac — even if you’re playing in a virtual reality
headset! But Xbox One can’t play with PlayStation 4, and vice
versa.

Nintendo characters even appear in the Microsoft-owned
“Minecraft.”
Nintendo

That same situation applies to “Fortnite,” which launched on
Nintendo Switch earlier this summer. Xbox One players are able to
play with iPhone/iPad, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac players — but
not with PlayStation 4.

Worse: If you’re a PlayStation 4 “Fortnite” player,
your “Fortnite” account is locked to the PlayStation 4
platform.

Any of the stuff you’ve unlocked, and the Battle Pass you paid
for? None of that shows up on other platforms if you unlocked it
on a PlayStation 4, despite the fact that the game uses an Epic
Games account separate from your PlayStation Network ID.

That isn’t the case for players on other platforms, and it’s the
latest example of Sony’s PlayStation 4 taking a surprisingly
exclusionary stance with multiplayer gaming.

When Microsoft announced the “Better Together” update to
“Minecraft” — uniting “Minecraft” players across all platforms —
it seemed for the first time ever that there was hope for
competing game platforms finally playing nice together.

“Sony is a good partner, and they are working with us on this,”
head of Microsoft Studios Matt Booty
told Business Insider in an interview at the time.

In the perfect world scenario Microsoft was trying to
create,”Call of Duty” players on PlayStation 4 could play with
“Call of Duty” players on Xbox One, for example, — something
that’s still not the norm even if it makes perfect sense. Why
can’t “Call of Duty” players on any console play together? Not
for a good reason.

It’s because Sony and Microsoft are competitors with the
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

Unfortunately, nearly a year later and there’s been no movement
on the plan to unify multiplayer gaming across the Xbox and
PlayStation platforms, despite the number of parties that want it
to happen. That’s what Xbox lead Phil Spencer told Business
Insider in an interview this past June at the annual E3 video
game trade show in Los Angeles.

“It’s impossible to answer this question without saying the name
of a competitor. And as soon as I do that — I don’t want to throw
stones at anybody,” Spencer said in a clear reference to Sony’s
PlayStation 4.

Instead of directly speaking to Microsoft and Sony’s respective
consoles, Spencer offered an example:

“Say you’re not into gaming, and it’s your kid’s birthday. You
buy them a console. I buy my kid a console. We happen to buy
consoles of different colors — you bought the blue one, I bought
the green one. Now those kids want to play a game together and
they can’t because their parents bought different consoles.

I don’t know who that helps. It doesn’t help the developer. The
developer just wants more people to play their game. It doesn’t
help the player. The players just want to play with their friends
who also play games on console. So, I just get stuck in who this
is helping.”

When asked directly if there’s been any progress, Spencer offered
only, “No, no.”

But with publishers like Bethesda pushing back on Sony’s policy
in such a direct way, perhaps progress can begin again. 

Competing home video game consoles have never been able to play
with each other, going back to the days of Nintendo versus Sega,
but that makes less sense as they’ve become more alike. The
current Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are very similar
consoles capable of outputting very similar results. They even
offer similar services, and the world’s biggest games are
identical on both — look no further than “Minecraft” and
“Fortnite” to see that. 

And that’s before we start talking about smartphones, which are
increasingly capable of running the same games that home game
consoles can.

Epic
Games

“The Elder Scrolls: Legends” is just the latest example of the
entire gaming medium becoming more accessible across devices.

Whether you’re on a phone, or on a home game console, you’re
playing the same game. You play against people on other
platforms, and your progress carries over from your phone to your
home conosle or PC. “There’s no ‘Oh, it’s easier to control, or
it has a better framerate on this system.’ It’s a strategy card
game. It doesn’t matter,”
Hines told Game Informer.

There’s a sense of inevitability to the concept of cross-platform
play and progress tracking, as Sony continues to look like the
bad guy for keeping the PS4 siloed off and even third-party game
publishers pubicly push back. The company has only made a few
statements on the matter,
most recently saying, “We’re hearing it.”

Sony representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment on
this story.