For the entire summer there has been one constant discussion raging on when it comes to Fortnite and the PS4: Why doesn't the game support cross-play? The typical response from Sony was that it was security related, but Microsoft didn't buy that excuse, especially since it was the PlayStation Network that suffered one of the biggest security breaches during last gen. And that's not to mention that the PS4 allows cross-play with PC gamers, even though PC gaming is known for hacks and cheats. However, after a lot of cajoling and lots of feedback from gamers, Sony finally decided to acquiesce and give the people what they wanted by enabling the one feature that PS4 gamers playing Fortnite have been begging for: cross-play compatibility.
Over on the PlayStation Blog the president and global CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, John Kodera, made a post explaining that there will be a cross-play compatibility beta test for Fortnite. In fact, the beta test has already begun!
Yes, starting today the open beta for the Fortnite cross-play compatibility has been enabled, allowing PlayStation 4 owners to play with Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Mac users.
The beta will allow the teams to monitor gameplay, commerce, and progression across all of the platforms interacting with the PlayStation 4.
The reason for all the red tape, delays, and apprehension in allowing cross-play on the PS4? Well, according to Kodera it's to ensure that the companies were mindful of the user experience from a "technical" and "social" perspective.
Kodera also notes that as times have changed the cross-play feature has added "significant value" to the gaming community, and this is seemingly why Sony has apparently changed its policy that prevented cross-play between the PS4 and the Xbox One, and the PS4 and the Nintendo Switch.
The post rounds out by saying that since the cross-play is major policy change for Sony Interactive Entertainment, there will be changes across the entire organization of Sony to support the change. This likely means that more games coming down the pipeline with cross-play compatibility and cross-platform interactivity will likely support the PS4 right from the get-go.
Expectations should be tempered, though. Kodera didn't explicitly say that every game supporting cross-play would be enabled on the PS4, but more-so that the company would address what this all means for future titles landing on the PS4 that may be cross-play enabled.
There was a lot of push-back from Sony initially, with the company first citing security concerns, but Microsoft quickly poked holes in that excuse. Later there were debates about whether it was a good value proposition for PS4 owners, but now we can see that Sony feels that it is a good value for gamers.
Epic had already allowed for cross-play in Fortnite for quite some time, but the company was forced to disable the feature on the PS4... until now. If you have a digital copy of Fortnite on your PS4 and you've been wanting to check out the cross-play features, you can do so right now via the open beta.