Yeah, I just remembered its the same here in Denmark - my daugther is a journalist, and recently the prosecutor sent her the wrong papers, including some that weren’t supposed to be public - but once she got them, they could publish them.
Sony did not want there documents released and they were not supposed to be sealed. They have now been revoked.
And Epic’s emails reveal Walmarts gaming service.
Well, well, well…
Also:
New info blocked out below.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed in testimony today that Sony is the only platform holder that requires this compensation for crossplay. “In certain circumstances Epic will have to pay additional revenue to Sony,” said Sweeney. “If somebody were primarily playing on PlayStation, but paying on iPhone then this might trigger compensation.” Sweeney also revealed that Epic had to agree to pay these additional fees to Sony in order to enable crossplay in Fortnite.
Sony also stipulates in the policy that publishers can’t transfer virtual currency to or from PlayStation, and that there must be a setting to disable all cross-platform interactions.
What a twist! It turns out he villain in the Epic vs. Apple case was Sony all along!
I’m shocked Epic paid it. You’d think they would just say OK, no cross-play on Playstation then.
Is it just me or does it seem from those documents like Sony is actively hostile toward its customers.
There’s no evidence Epic ever had to pay anything. It’s a policy designed to protect Sony in cases where they were providing all the players, but the revenue was being funneled through another service. I’d assume the revenue naturally spreads comperably preventing the royalty from ever triggering. Even if it did, the figures shown were pretty tiny relative to the actual revenue, and in principle it’s not that different from a restaurant charging a bottle service fee if you bring your own wine.
They were actively hostile to giving up a huge competitive advantage for no benefit to their own business.
Remember how they talked about their customers when the PS3 came out, and they just assumed they were going to dominate that generation after the success of the PS2?
Except that now it looks like they’re greedy bastards who are trying to stand in the way of their customers playing this free game with their friends on whatever platform they choose, which might have an effect on public perception of the company and lose them customers. The bottle service analogy is imperfect and doesn’t reflect how people think about these platforms. It’s more like a restaurant manager refusing to allow me to send texts to my friends who are dining at the restaurant next door.
Your analogy is way more flawed than mine. Selling food and booze is a core business for restaurants. Having a captive audience in a walled garden is a core business for consoles. Unless you’re texting your friend your order for the other restaurant while you sit there eating free bread and taking a table that could otherwise be used by a paying customer, then your analogy would apply.
Remember, gang, analogies are nothing but trouble. Using them is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Right, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hostile to their customers. I think we understand that the market leader doesn’t have much to gain financially by helping its competitors.
And I’m still not sure what competitive advantage they get from disallowing cross play. Do they imagine that people are going to buy Sony consoles so they can play Fortnite with their friends? Sony already requires a subscription to enable multiplayer. What more do they need? I must be missing something here.
Yes, probably they do. And they’re probably at least a little right.
I can see the business case for not allowing it, only in that, from a financial perspective, allowing cross-play almost entirely benefits Microsoft since it makes it easier for people to choose to buy a non-PlayStation console.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not anti-consumer.
The thing is, as a consumer, crossplay is beneficial. It means I can more easily play against other people.
Certainly I understand why Sony hates crossplay. They want to prevent anyone from using any other system.
But, to me as a consumer… I don’t really give a shit. Sony’s actions are actively hostile to me as a consumer. The fact that I can understand the source of their motivation doesn’t negate the hostility.
They didn’t at the time. F2P games were free to play on Playstation, sub required on other consoles.