With confirmation that Fortnite‘s Battle Royale will crossover platforms–between PS4, PC, Mac, and mobile–those at Microsoft are working with Epic Games to allow Xbox One users to do the same thing. The original game plan was to allow users from all of the previously mentioned systems to cross-play with one another when playing Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode. However, PlayStation and Xbox still haven’t come to terms about cross-playing with each other. At this rate, there’s a better chance that Half-Life 3 will be announced before that happens.
Originally reported by Polygon, players using a mobile device will be able to join games with those using a PS4, PC, or Mac, but not the other way around. It’s an odd agreement, especially considering, as the development team has said, “On phones and tablets, Fortnite is the same 100-player game you know from PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac. Same gameplay, same map, same content, same weekly updates.” Like the peculiar nature of this cross-play design, the persisting disagreement between PlayStation and Xbox to join forces continues to confuse gamers everywhere.
And it appears that this disagreement stems from PlayStation not wanting to come to terms with Xbox. Last summer, there was the chance for the two to come together for a cross-console event. Rocket League’s developers said that it was possible for the two to work out a deal to allow cross-console play to happen, but PlayStation remained adamant that they did not want their players mingling with Xbox’s for safety and security reasons.
So while Xbox was originally out of Fortnite’s Battle Royale crossover plans when it was announced yesterday, they’re in now. The way it’s looking at the moment could be explained as follows: Mobile > PC > Mac > PS4; and Mobile > PC > Mac > Xbox One. The two consoles will remain out of one another’s business, as they always have.
But say Xbox and PlayStation were to come to an agreement through Fortnite’s Battle Royale, the economic implications for both companies would be unfathomable. They’re in direct competition with one another, producing the same games–besides the console exclusives–usually at the same time. If Fortnite’s Battle Royale has the capability to implement this seemingly impossible cross-console play, then why wouldn’t other games be able to either? The earnings between Xbox and PlayStation would be skewed because of players having the choice to find matches with others from their competitor’s console.
But, hey, maybe Epic Games will experience another “error” like they did back in September when Xbox One and PS4 users were able to play together. And maybe, if it does ever happen again, it’ll be permanent.