By Ben Kuchera, Polygon
For almost two days, Sony had stayed silent about the growing anger over Fortnite accounts that were locked out of playing on the Nintendo Switch due to use on the PlayStation 4. Now the company has finally issued a statement, but it says so little that it‘s practically useless for fans who were hoping Sony would listen to their complaints.
Here‘s what happened: Accounts that have been played on the Nintendo Switch likewise seem to be locked out of the PlayStation 4. Sony never warned players that they could be locked out of using their accounts on future consoles due to playing Fortnite on the PlayStation 4. After the discovery, the company‘s social media account was bombarded with complaints about the situation.
“We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience,” Sony said in a statement to the BBC. ”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.”
What’s missing so far is any acknowledgement of the issue itself, or even a hint that Sony is working to improve the account lockout situation for its angry players.
”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,” Sony stated. ”We have nothing further to add beyond this at this point,”
The statement reads like a tactic, Sony hoping to avoid admitting there’s a problem long enough for things to calm down and players to forget why they’re so upset. While Sony pats itself on the back for user numbers, it fails to give any information on how it will improve the situation for the large number of upset fans. This isn’t a problem that’s going to go away anytime soon.
Epic Games has declined to comment on the story. Nintendo has told Polygon there’s not much it can do about how other platforms treat Fortnite accounts.
“In fairness, there are three different things going on,” Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, told Polygon in an interview at E3 2018. ”You have companies like mine that encourage cross-play and enable cross-play. You have a developer and content owner that wants cross-play and is encouraging cross play, and then you have the other platform holders and what it is that they do. And when it comes to other platform holders, as much as you have influence on other platform holders, I don’t. And that’s a decision that each of them are making, and some are supporting cross play and some are not.”
