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Getting into even MORE nuance.

Having worked on federated login with Sony, I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates. It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms. It's for the same reason Spotify subscriptions use in-app purchase but you put your credit card into Uber and Lyft. Allowing cross-play means the in-game items you paid for with loot crates should transfer.

Aha, HN devs say, why don't you just carry a bit with those items that were paid for and hide them on other platforms? This is, more or less, how Blizzard deals with this. However, if that's not how you set it up out of the gate, that can be a painful thing to do retroactively. That's why I feel it's a bit disingenuous to heap ALL the hate on Sony. Epic could possibly work around this.

That said, everything about the account is cosmetic-related. You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...but how big of a deal is that really? It doesn't affect gameplay. That's probably what Epic is thinking.

>You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...

But you can't. It would not only cost money to, but it is also time gated, and once that gate closes you can't open it back up. No new account can have a John Wick skin because it requires buying something no longer for sale and then completing challenges that are no longer part of the game.

>I suspect this "account taint" behavior is because Epic is using Sony's payment platform for loot crates.

But Sony's response says "We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices". It seems like consoles in their target market are specifically excluded for portability here.

Interesting, I didn't see that. In that case, it makes the account lockout case even weaker. There really is no technical reason for it. However, that makes it Epic's issue, since they clearly have means of handling it.

I think its insane how many comments are trying to deflect from the issue. Sony can and should allow users to bring their accounts and purchases with them to and from their platform.

> It's against Sony's policy to be able to pay for things to be used outside their ecosystem...mostly because that opens up a whole can of legal worms. I can purchase skins on PC and use them on PS4. So that blows up the legal argument.

This feels like a weird distortion because its gaming related. For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales. We would be roasting Apple right now if they were locking it down like Sony is.

> For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales

They also don't allow you to purchase books within their ecosystem. On PC, you're using Epic's payment platform. Same way you can pay for your kindle books on the web in Amazon's ecosystem and then read them on an iPad.

My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles, when followed lazily, can lead to anti-consumer practices. I don't think it's deflecting from the issue to discuss the underlying technical and legal constraints. It's Hacker News. If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.

> On PC, you're using Epic's payment platform.

I don't see how this is different from Xbox/iOS/PC/Switch all sharing digital purchases. Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?

> My point is that weird technical and legal hurdles

I don't think their are any technical challenges unless you insist digital licenses must be sandboxed. Epic has accidentally removed the technical blocks previously.

> It's Hacker News. If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.

I'm sorry if it feels like I'm raging but I strongly believe users need to fight for fair digital licensing. Sandboxing purchases feels like a fine technical workaround but I'd prefer platform owners change policy to match users expectations.

> Sony is the only platform that has "legal hurdles" preventing this?

Not all companies "move fast and break things" in legal matters. We don't know the full circumstances, but Sony may have evaluated the landscape and decided the liabilities weren't worth the potential profits, while Nintendo and Microsoft looked at the landscape and decided that the profits exceeded the liabilities in this case.

It's for the same reason that you find Wells Fargo or Facebook committing transgressions that other banks or social media sites may avoid.

> > For example Apple allows their users to bring kindle books purchased outside their platform even though they didn't get a 30% cut of sales > They also don't allow you to purchase books within their ecosystem.

Apple will absolutely let you purchase ebooks within their ecosystem. But if you are selling other people's books, that 30% is likely your entire margin.

Ironically, you can buy real books too, without giving apple a cut (except their portion for the CC tx fees from the bank for Apple Pay)

> If you want to rage against Sony for not allowing cross-play go to Polygon.

While you might not agree with the other poster, this REALLY isn't the way civil people debate. Don't do this.

Apple did want to block books purchased outside their platform. Kindle for iOS still doesn't support purchasing because of this.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2509396/mobile-apps/am...

https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/30/4572170/amazon-finds-clev...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/24/technology/gadgets/kindle-ap...

This isn’t the same thing exactly.

You can buy items in the game on the PC play it on multiple platforms but as soon as you log into the game on a PS4 the account will be locked to that system as far as consoles go.

There is no warnning, there is no way to reverse this and they essentially lock you out out of your own account.

Apple wanted a cut that Amazon didn’t want to give but they didn’t not block you from using the Kindle app on an iPhone nor did they locked out the books from being accessible on other platforms once you’ve opened them on your phone.

Not even Apple is that stupid.

Also even if Apple did block books purchased outside of their platform that would still would not be comparable as they did not forcibly locked you out of content you’ve already owned on all other platforms.

I would be Ok if Sony and Epic made a deal that items purchased from the PSN store would be unavailable else where but locking your account because you logged in even once and didn’t play the game or even bought an item is just bullshit.

I should add to this that this isn’t even only Fortnite as this is on the Epic account level so if you played previous Epic games on your PS4 your account is locked out by default.

A friend of mine had his Fortnite account locked out because they played the Paragon beta on their PS4 like 2 years ago. They don’t even own a PS4 anymore and never played Fortnite on it.

It's weirder than that, you aren't really paying for the items directly from Sony's platform when you play on the PS4, you're buying V-bucks, Fortnite's currency, and that's what you use to buy your items.

For one, the solution should be keeping two different V-Buck wallets: one for Sony, and another for everyone else, legal issue solved, moving on. So, because it's not happening, there must be something we're missing here...

> You'll have to start all over getting your John Wick skin...

My understanding, having not played Fortnite:

* Some skins (like John Wick) are time-limited and purchase-limited and achievement-limited. In other words you have to purchase the Battle Pass for a given season and complete all the challenges before the time runs out. John Wick skins are past that window, nothing can be done about them now.

* Other skins are just time and money limited. I'm told that you can log in and there will be only a single skin for sale.

But really, discussing whether it's a big deal[0] is missing what's important here. Neither Sony nor Epic adequately warned players that this would happen. That's the meat of the issue right there.

Again, I've not played Fortnite, only seen it in the Epic launcher when I dust off Unreal Engine 4.

[0]: Do I really need to say it is a big deal that players who poured money into their account are now being told to start from scratch?

To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.

I have lost any kind of trust in Sony. After the massive hacks, shitty anti-customer attitude and now locking the Fortnite accounts, I will never buy another Sony product in the future.

Everybody understands the value of crossplay and portability of 'stuff'. It's just not particularly valuable when you're in a dominant position.

All of these companies have had pretty shitty, anti-customer attitudes. Microsoft popularized pay-for-online services with Xbox Gold and now it's standard to have to pay a monthly fee to play your console games online. Conservely, crossplay would be the standard now is Microsoft has jumped on board when Sony was supporting it last generation. Nintendo hasn't been able to maintain a reasonable level of presense-across-device, creating a massive headache when changing devises or getting a new console and having to repurchase things you shouldn't have to. I can't really see the justification for not buying a Sony product but continuing to support Xbox or Nintendo given all of their attitudes over the years.

I'm confused. What's Nintendo's attitude? Not being successful in the market?

I get the whole 'dominant position' argument. It just seems dumb to me to behave like this when you're in a dominant position. Seems that big corporations learn the same lesson over and over again - in the meantime customers are left holding the bag.

BTW, full disclosure: I'm a Nintendo Switch fanboi, so take everything that comes out of my keyboard with a pinch of salt.

As a fellow Switch fanboy: Nintendo's online purchasing systems have (until the Switch) been extremely weird. Purchases on the eShop (or equivalent) on Wii, DSi, 3DS, and (IIRC) Wii U weren't tied to an account, they were tied to a console. If your console died, you couldn't just buy another one and automatically get all your games back, you'd have to call Nintendo customer support and get them to move your licenses over. The Switch fixed that but has the new problem that save data can't be backed up (until their paid online service starts in a couple months).

Not just this, but the other mystifying bit is that titles had to be repurchased for different types of devices. Not only did you have to physically migrate your games between consoles, but like, virtual console titles might be available for both 3DS and Wii platforms, but you'd have to buy them separately on each. And the Switch doesn't have "virtual console" persay yet, but will sell some legacy titles, like the new Donkey Kong release under the "arcade archives" label.

In most other companies, like Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, etc., if you buy a title, you can play it on any platform that supports it. The fact that Nintendo players can't accumulate a library of legacy Nintendo titles and play them on any Nintendo console they port it to demonstrates Nintendo has a strong interest in repackaging and reselling the same games over and over again.

The one notable exception to this was that you were given a decently steep discount on "upgrading" Wii VC titles to their essentially identical Wii U versions, like 80% off or so. Still, it really shouldn't have been paid at all.

sure. from a technical point of view their approach sucked (and the market "punished them" for this, right?) but at least at a philosophical (how things should work) they did the right thing in helping you move your licenses over.

I believe the Xbox Live criticism is unfair. The reason the service gained popularity is because it added value. Because XBL centralized the online gaming experience, a lot of benefits were realized including centralizing your multiplayer experience (community and content), and not having to maintain multiple subscriptions for different game services. That is and was worth the premium, atleast for me personally. For Nintendo, I think your criticism is valid, but only first party games. In the case of Sony, they are blocking (what seems to be) Epic's intention of allowing cross platform. And this is different since it's a policy choice, rather than having to invest development hours or something.

It also took some value that used to be free away. It was expected before Xbox Gold that you be able to play games you bought online.

> Because XBL centralized the online gaming experience

Gamespy and Steam's multiplayer system already did that for free.

> a lot of benefits were realized including centralizing your multiplayer experience (community and content)

Again, same thing.

> not having to maintain multiple subscriptions for different game services

I never needed to ever, except for MMOs, which I was still required to pay for on XBL at the time.

> That is and was worth the premium

No it wasn't, the fact you had to play multiplayer hosted on your own console, hosted on your own internet connection, by software you already bought is ridiculous. They offered "free updates", community features and other services completely free. But, multiplayer, the only thing most of us wanted and none of this "value add", you had to pay.

Sony isn't in a dominant position. If I were to buy a new console Sony isn't even a contender.

What? Last time I looked the PS4 was outselling the Xbox 1 by a 2:1 ratio and the switch was selling about a 10th of that. Sony doesn't care about cross play because it doesn't benefit them. Your personal feelings aside, Sony has absolutely dominated this latest round of the console wars. It wasn't even close.

I really don't care about their sales numbers. Personally I don't consider them a contender for myself.

Because Sony doesn't support proper cross play, among many other reasons they are out.

I guess the point was that right now, they have the most consoles and games out there. That being said I think they have repeatedly pissed off enough people that they will not be seriously considered when the time to buy a new console comes.

> To me it's common sense to allow me to take my stuff from one platform to the other. Microsoft gets it, Nintendo gets is.

You haven't really looked at app platforms before, have you. If you buy evernote on IOS, you're sure not getting it on android.

MS is being friendly to it because they're behind. In the Xbox 360/PS3 days, it was Sony asking to do cross-play and Microsoft denying it. Its a PR play, and you're buying it.

I'm not on Sony, but I think the appropriate analogy would be making an evernote account on google, then logging in on ios, and then subsequently being unable to use that account on google.

I think you’re right actually. One expects subscription services to still function.

Holy shit, now I’m pissed. Been playing this on PS4 & pretty beyond annoyed to learn that stepping foot inside their garden is having effects outside of it.

I think Epic should pull a power move while they have the most popular game in the world and pull it from Sony with no notice.

If you can file a complaint, a few of my friends already filed a complaint with their local EU anti-trust and consumer protection agencies.

As you said they were quite annoyed that an account that they’ve spent a lot of time and also money on is now essentially locked out and irreversibly so without any warning or consent.

It seems that Epic is partially to blame for this. If they just required PS4 accounts only for PS4 it would cause far less problem for people. Epic could also allow the transfer of all unlocked items and such between accounts, but chooses not to because they benefit from people being forced to buy it a second time as well. That Epic would have to implement this functionality is the fault of Sony, but that they implement it in the way they current do is the fault of Epic, and so consumers should be mad at both Epic and Sony.

I don't really see how Epic can't fix this. Are they deleting your account on their servers when switching to Sony? Seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing to do.

They probably are contractually bound to have this behavior with Sony in exchange for promotion or cash. It doesn't benefit Epic in any way and it benefits Sony a lot.

I mean they still could have just not linked accounts and made everyone make a new account just for Sony. Really only Epic to blame here.

I'm not sure what you mean. If they have a business arrangement it probably explicitly includes a one way transfer of accounts into PS4. Sony would clearly be willing to pay for this (both minimize friction getting in and maximize it getting out).

The issue of Sony disallowing cross-play is not the reason for controversy in this case.

Hmm, so I wonder what the cause of the controversy really is.

It's actually because logging in to a Fortnite account on PS4 irreversibly locks that account to Sony's walled garden.

Oh, so it is Sony.

Regardless of how Sony went about the cause I don't see how you can make a distinction regarding the effect.

Uhhh did he say it wasn't Sony's fault? His point was cross-play isn't the worst part, but the way Sony locks your account in. Don't see how that exonerates Sony.

For that very reason I refuse to buy Sony products. For ages they forced they (incompatible, proprietary, overpriced memory cards) and PS is sooo locked that it doesn't make sense to invest (even if they have exclusive titles)