Error Temporarily Allows Fortnite to be Cross-Played Between Xbox One and PS4

Ten years ago, if you had told somebody that someday they’d be able to play their Xbox games with their buddy who owned a Nintendo console, they would have laughed in your face. Meanwhile, if you had told someone they’d be able to play their Xbox game with their buddy who had a Playstation, they probably would have said, “Oh that sounds nice, I hope they do that soon”.

Well, it’s 20-friggin-17 and only the former is actually true. Despite Nintendo and Microsoft both embracing the possibilities of cross-play, with games like Rocket League and Minecraft able to be played on just about any system with any other, Sony is being the stubborn hold-over who refuses to allow cross-play, despite the fact it’s so easy, a game can do it on accident and have to fix it in an emergency patch.

Which is exactly what happened the other day when people discovered that Fortnite, the survival tower-defense mashup produced by Epic, was suddenly, albeit temporarily, cross-compatible between Xbox One and PS4 players. Players on both consoles were able to have a blast building forts and killing monsters together for a few brief hours, until Epic realized there had been a “configuration issue” and promptly fixed the issue.

Which, of course, no one is exactly happy with. At the time of this writing, Sony itself hasn’t commented on it, but Xbox head Phil Spencer is on record via Twitter saying he would have liked to see them leave it on. Sony has commented on the lack of cross-play features in the past and admitted that it wasn’t a question of technology as much as it was a question of business, with a majority of their shareholders being against the idea. It’s likely the same people who decided there should be a data limit on how much modding you can do in Skyrim.

So there you have it. Fortnite is back to being console-exclusive. But maybe if we actually raise a fuss about this, Sony might come to their senses and let the next “configuration issue” stick around for a while?

Yeah, I thought not.