Documents Reveal Sony Charges Developers for Cross-Platform Access

New documents and testimony which have emerged from the ongoing lawsuit between Apple and Epic seem to indicate that Sony charges developers for access to cross-platform on PlayStation; something which the company has never publicly admitted. Notably, the testimony also states that no other platform holder charges for this feature.

Sony Charging for PlayStation Cross-Platform Access

The claim that Sony charges developers for PlayStation cross-platform functionality surfaced recently during court testimony from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz. During his testimony, Sweeney stated that Sony charges developers a fee to enable cross-play. Moreover, he went on to state that Sony is the only platform holder to do so. He also revealed that Epic had paid these charges in order to enable cross-play in Fortnite’s PlayStation version.

Sony Charging Developers for PlayStation Cross-Platform Cross-Play

Sony was opposed to cross-platform play for years until relatively recently. Attempts to implement cross-play for both Minecraft and Rocket League were quashed by Sony in 2017. As were plans for Fortnite cross-play in 2018. However, after months of pressure from Epic (and from users), the company changed position. Fortnite was the first PlayStation title to allow cross-platform play. However, it now seems that Sony didn’t simply relent on this position. Rather, they took the opportunity to charge developers for the service. This may explain why several games have released with PC and Xbox cross-play, but not PlayStation.

The court testimony did not detail how much these cross-platform fees are. However, given that other platforms don’t appear to charge at all, it’s understandable that some titles (particularly smaller games) might not opt to include PlayStation cross-play as a result. Given that Sony does control the largest gaming platform audience, they do have a commanding position in the industry. (The very reason the company opposed cross-platform play in the first place, since they stood to benefit little from its adoption.)