Epic Games Vs. Apple Court Documents Reveal That Sony Charges For Cross-Play Support
Up until three or four years ago, it would have been virtually impossible for a game to support cross-play between PlayStation other platforms. Now, almost every multi-platform game has this feature. So what changed?
New documents revealed during the Epic Games vs Apple gives us some insight into why Sony grudgingly agreed to implement cross-platform play. Apparently, Epic Games wouldn’t take no for an answer and was prepared to go to great lengths just to get Sony to agree to implement cross-platform play in Fortnite. Here
“We love working with PlayStation, and we want this to be a win/win,” wrote VP of Business Development Joe Kreiner in an email to Sony in 2018. “The longer this drags out, it will be less so. I can’t think of a scenario where Epic doesn’t get what we want – that possibility wend out the door when Fortnite became the biggest game on PlayStation.”
Sony eventually gave in, thereby opening the gates to other multiplayer titles. Cross-platform support, however, comes with a price. According to the documents submitted to the court and testimony from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, Sony charged royalties for cross-play enabled games when the ratio of player numbers vs. player-spending falls below a certain limit.
Sweeney said that Epic needed to agree to the terms for Sony to enable cross-platform play for Fortnite. He also added that Sony is the only company that asks for compensation in exchange for cross-play although it’s unclear whether the policy is still in place.
The Epic Games vs Apple antitrust trial kicked off yesterday with a virtual dial-in conference line available for anyone who wanted to listen to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the clerks weren’t able to mute the conference call participants for the first few minutes of the trial which meant that anyone could call in and say whatever they want. And that’s exactly what people did. According to The Verge, over 200 people called in with several screaming “Free Fortnite!”S
