Sony Admits They Were "Tone-Deaf" to PlayStation Players Regarding Cross-Play

Sony has slowly but surely been coming around to cross-play despite originally been all for it last generation. Since then, they've flipped to be firmly against it and then flipped once more to be for it. Titles like Rocket League and Fortnite truly pushed those boundaries for the company and it looks now they are realising that they were being a bit "tone-deaf" to what the community wants.

Sony Chairman Shawn Layden recently sat down with the folks over at Game Informer to talk about cross-play and where it goes from here. Though it took a bit of time to get there, Layden mentioned that Sony as a company is back onboard with their player base and going forward after learning from several previous missteps:

"I think we learned, from the feedback from our fans, that it was important. And it wasn't just important to a vocal minority," Layden mentioned. He then added, "Even the fans who weren't personally going to participate in a cross-play activity across different hardware pieces, just felt that it was kind of tone-deaf of PlayStation. We've tried to be so good certainly over the last four or five years to be in tune with our fans and to listen to what they want and try to be a friends of the gamer. We looked at that approach. This… this is just not friendly."

He also mentioned that they were "open for business" concerning cross-play, but it's a lot trickier than many seem to realise, "People keep saying, "Why doesn't Sony allow more people to have it?" We're open for business on this one. All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we've learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don't believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they're open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well."

What do you think about what the chairman had to say about Cross-Play progression? Is this a feature that means a lot to you as a player? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy!