Player made mods for Fallout 4 are awesome. That’s something most people can agree on. The ability to change things like graphical effects, or add new assets, or just shut Preston Garvey up is possible through the extensive modding community. While PC players have been enjoying mods on Bethesda roleplaying games for years, Fallout 4 is the first one that’s offered mods on a console. Mods through the Bethesda.net portal have been available on the Xbox One since May 31st, and the developer had said they were working on mods for the PlayStation 4. Since that time, we’ve been given repeated assurances that Fallout 4 mods on PlayStation 4 were coming. That dream ends today. Bethesda has announced that mods for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition will not be available on the PlayStation 4.
It certainly makes Skyrim Special Edition a less attractive proposition on PS4.
The phrasing of Hines’ announcement makes it sound like the two companies disagreed on some policy issue.
[quote]
Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.[/quote]
Sony postured during the release run-up as a customer-centric company but they are far from it. No backwards compatibility. Raising the rates on their horrendously slow online service. Now this. Microsoft is screwing up big-time not really being able to take advantage of Sony’s arrogance.
We only have one side of the story, for all we know this could have been about the transaction cut for paid mods, or Sony mandating review to avoid ISIS recruitment mods, etc. We just don’t know enough.
While many see these as quick cheap shots on Twitter many of these reasons are why I purchased an Xbox One in July this summer when I thought–with near absolute certainty–that my console purchase this generation was going to be a PS4.
The Xbox’s Backwards Compatibility, Mod Support, new Play Anywhere initiative, the excellent EA Access program, Preview program (allowing in-development games), and their stronger free game offerings through GWG (since PS+ freebies have sucked donkey balls lately) all mattered more to me than a console with slightly stronger processing power.
The Xbox One may not be as powerful as the PS4 but games still look great and run fine from my perspective. The fact that I can pay one price to get most of this fall’s big games on both my Xbone and gaming PC is pretty incredible and I am loving the backwards compatibility and how well the 360 games are performing on the One.
Last gen I owned a PS3 and have a metric ton of games (both physical and digital) that don’t work on the PS4 and paying extra to stream games I already own is not compelling in the slightest. I’d rather keep my PS3 connected to my TV and play the games natively.
Well said, AA. I don’t have time for console wars bullshit but it always strikes me as odd that it’s taken for granted that there are no legitimate reasons to choose Xbox. I’ve been pretty happy with mine so far.
Possible that it’s an issue regarding content, and some mods offering content that may be illegal in countries like Japan and more conservative religious states where Sony has great incentive to protect their branding.
One thing that avoids ISIS recruitment is not invading Iraq or having Nike Air bomb Libya, oh wait…
But yes, its probably bullshit reasons like those that blocks them, on the other hand, Both Sony and Nintendo are from Japan, and they do make some crazy decisions over there with regards to “the internet”.
XBOX UK is on a Roll, but they still wanted to sell a NSA machine to everyone, so there’s that. I wonder if they are still touting the “tv tv tv tv sports sports sports” angle.
Apparently, this June notice to modding testers is the best hint of what the issues were:
[quote]
KNOWN ISSUES WITH PS4 MODS
PC textures are used. Memory and performance issues may occur. We are working with Sony on optimal texture exporting support in a future update.
Sound files are currently not supported. PS4 sound format is a proprietary format. We are working with Sony on sound file processing support in a future update.
PS4 Mod Storage limit is approximately 900 MB at present. Please do not upload mods larger than 900 MB. We are working with Sony to increase this limit.[/quote]
From other discussions, it sounds like Sony was unwilling to budge on the sound file format and the 900MB size limit.
Seeing as the mods are presumably made on a PC, surely it would be possible for the editor to have a “package mod for PS4” that does the Texture/Sound conversion and adheres to size requirements?
Yeah, I believe this is the source of the issue, but I think it came down to Bethesda wanting Sony to make the conversion tools public so modders could convert their files themselves, and Sony insisting they remain private which would have forced Bethesda to figure out a way to do them in house before being published. They’ve framed that as Sony not allowing them “as they should be”, but I think it’s more accurate to say Bethesda didn’t want to bear the burden of meeting Sony’s requirements (ones which they should have known were there from day one).
[quote]
We’re excited to announce that mod support is coming to PlayStation 4 for both Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4. Additionally, we’ll also be supporting the new PlayStation 4 Pro with both titles.
Skyrim will have these features when it launches on October 28. The new power of the PlayStation 4 Pro has allowed us to make Skyrim render in native 4k, and it looks better than ever.[/quote]
[quote]
Mod support will come to Skyrim first. We and Sony have worked hard to make this possible. Mods on PlayStation 4 will allow you to modify and create your own content by using our Creation Kit available here. You will not be able to upload external assets with your PlayStation 4 mods, but you will be able to use any assets that come with the game, as most mods do.[/quote]
[quote]
After the work is complete on Skyrim, we’ll be updating Fallout 4 for both mods and PS4 Pro. We expect Fallout 4 to take advantage of the PS4 Pro in 4k along with enhanced lighting and graphics features.[/quote]
