Sony"s stance on allowing cross-play between its own console and other platforms has, of course, been known - and criticised - for a while. The company, however, took things a step further recently, and quickly drew the ire of the gaming community by refusing to even allow players to share a single account across platforms.
Microsoft"s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, has generally tried to maintain a very pro-gamer reputation among the community, and it"s not surprising that just like the last time Sony made a similar decision, he"s come out and criticised Xbox"s biggest rival.
Spencer argued in a recent interview that Sony"s policies were to the detriment of gamers, stating,
If you bought your son, your child, an Xbox, and I bought my child a PlayStation – and I’m just a parent, it’s their birthday, whatever – and the kids want to go play Fortnite and they all of a sudden go home and can’t play with each other… it doesn"t feel like it helps the consumers.
If it doesn’t help the developers and it doesn"t help the consumer, then it doesn"t feel like it helps to grow gaming to me. I’m not going to judge anybody else making their decisions because they’ve got to run their business.
Sharing the stage with Spencer was Nintendo"s Reggie Fils-Aimé, who also emphasised that his platform encouraged cross-play between platforms, and while not referring to Sony by name, he did off-handedly show his annoyance that even though both the gaming community and Fortnite"s developer - Epic Games - want cross-play, one platform is holding out.
Source: Giant Bomb via MSPoweruser