Well yeah, but that's somewhat irrelevant. Sony have long done PS2-PC, PSP-PS3, VITA-PS4, and I believe PS4-PC, PS4-PS5 and PS5-PC initiatives like cross platform play, cross gamesave usage, and cross buy.
I didn't say from the user's point of view. I said from Sony's business pov. You can't even say "oh go-on, be fair, papa Sony", they're gonna turn round and say "but we have most market share, if they want to play together then the person on XB or whatever platform should get a PS". Why should Sony hurt themselves and give a free boon to their direct competition, and not at least get some financial compensation for it?
... Because people cry on twitter?
Cross play and cross gen/PS-PC all devalue the reasons for needing to get Sony's latest and greatest machine, but that's a wider conversation for a later time.
Crossplay benefits Sony users and their console being the only one not supporting it for some games made them look bad, so some player may have decided to buy it in another platform because it didn't support it.
Crossplay did hurt Sony in games with DLC or IAP and cross save because multiplatform games Playstation is the best selling platform for most multi games, but there was the risk of being spending PSN's server and customer support costs on them while DLC and IAP may have been bought cheaper in other stores.
So by including a fee for the case where crosssave+crossplay games compensate Sony in the case it happens, plus the publisher agreeing Sony doesn't take responsability for the users that aren't from their platform solves any issue Sony may have with crossplay. So with them solved, Sony is ok with crossplay.
Taking a stand for what exactly?
You make it sound like some noble cause, when all its actually about is more money for themselves.
If it actually is about policy and fees, which is uncertain.
Their publisher is now a Microsoft studio, so they decided to include it on Game Pass and to not implement crossplay in PS.
That's exactly what I said, no? I don't care what happened 5, 10, 20 years ago, what matters is what's going on now. And what's going now is the opposite of what Ryan says, you could say he's Sony's Michael Patcher.
Bullshit. Mention and single thing Ryan said now and that what's going on right now is the opposite providing a fact.
Sony has a policy that will affect how many games get crossplay.
It’s odd that you frame it as developers “keeping more money for themselves.” Not wanting to pay a ridiculous fee that PC, mobile, Nintendo, and Xbox don’t charge isn’t being greedy. And it’s not as if Sony is doing some hard work that merits compensation.
It will only affect those games with crossplay and cros-ssave who discount their DLC and IAP in other platforms and not in PS to a point that there's a huge disproportion between the % of PS players and the % of revenue in PS.
This means it only would affect Epic and MS in case they wanted to fuck Sony on their crossplay game selling these DLC and IAP cheaper on their own platforms.
Sony is only covering their ass for not being over spending server costs for matchmaking, trophies, text/voice chats, customer service, etc. with players that are mostly buying their stuff in other store.
Nintendo and Xbox don't need to do this because their userbase % on multi games is way smaller compared to Sony, so they need crossplay at all costs because without it most people would prefer to play on PS because on average they have more friends there, so Sony is the only one who loses with crossplay. Without crossplay, more players would buy the PS version because their friends are there. And with a bigger % of the users Sony is the one who can be more fucked if not covering their ass because we're talking about dozens of millons of players playing crossplay games on PS, while the number is way smaller in the other ones.