Can't say I'm not surprised. Not entirely, but mostly. I knew PS wouldn't do it with the heat on like it was, but I thought they would wait longer, which makes me suspicious of why the need for so much good will all of the sudden? First Spider-Man, then a classic console, then PS Now downloads, now cross play, while gamer tag change is supposedly on the way before xmas. There is no reason apparent at the moment for a bombardment of pro consumer greatness at this time. Why? Something must be up.

I can't help but notice the irony of the cross play situation at the moment. So much hatred towards PS and it's anti consumer ways leading to arrogant SNY talk returning. Coincidentally, now that Nin was receiving a similar type of backlash for their online offering and policies, leading to anti consumer talk, PS decides to put out the fire on their own end. This is definitely another business tactic. PS didn't even make it sound like they wanted to do it, but they knew it could be used to kill at least two birds or more with one stone by doing it now.

While I would on one hand imagine this means no more handhelds from PS since their basically telling you go buy a Switch if you want to play on the go, they have now 'lied' about not wanting cross play, and not wanting old crappy retro games. They are 2 for 2 for so far. What about more recently and not wanting anything to do with handhelds? 3 4 3 soon?

There are positives and negatives for PS with cross play. As for negatives, anyone who wanted a Switch or XB1 for whatever reason, can now get one and play Fortnite and some future games against PS players. How many people that is exactly would seem to be few, otherwise PS would be giving up many things. It also helps to prove if people make enough noise, they can get their way. In the future if there is something that is definitely going to really hurt the PS business or franchise, money related or not, they may have a hard time telling those people no because now you've opened the door. Hopefully MS doesn't decide to become too consumer friendly and drop paywalls and hardware prices because why buy a PS4 for cross play games like Fortnite, if there is no longer a Live paywall and/or if XB1 is much cheaper than PS4? With the cheap streaming 'XB2' option rumors, it really makes me wonder if MS has thought this through in terms of hardware and price. Games like Fortnite don't require the most powerful hardware ever. Some users here made it fairly clear they didn't want to have to pay for cross play, yet another charge. Money is made off micro transactions with these games, so making sure people are buying that game on your own platform really matters. PS lost some of that leverage.

As for positives, it will get rid of the negativity that surrounded cross play, however small, and will only allow it to be a small smear on their legacy (for the time being), so as not to damage the brand going forward, unlike XB1 this gen. It should also gain them some goodwill and some more sales. They made it clear it's only for Fortnite at the moment, and third party games, so they can take their time now if they like and slowly allow existing games to cross over while they keep profiting until then. They also can direct most of any future negativity about cross play towards the pubs and devs. Even though Epic should've been taking way more heat, PS can now point the finger at the games themselves. This may actually help PS to some degree in the future. Any dev or pub who doesn't want cross play for whatever reason, may be slightly upset PS caved, but PS can easily point out the PR pressure they were put under, mostly by MS, and this may very well but a bad taste in those devs/pubs mouth's when it comes to dealing with XB in the future.

Personally, it's not a big deal for me, as long as the option exists to enable or disable cross play if I want. I do think this could very well come back to bite PS in the butt in the future though. I kind of wonder if they didn't necessarily cave, but maybe are actually getting that cocky that they figure they no longer need cross play as leverage. That may be true in this gen, but next gen could be a different story, unless they have aces up their sleeves. I sure hope those aces aren't starting next gen off without cross play on PS5. MS may be able to get away with offering monthly plans late in the gen, only to pull them when the next gen starts, but if PS tries pulling cross play with PS5, it's going to blow up in their face unless MS follows suit.

Yeah it's actually shocking that there's no massive outcry regarding this. If it was the other way around I bet you Microsoft would be constantly promoting campaigns against it like they did crossplay. Sony on the other hand say absolutely nothing and let Microsoft away with this.

So next gen will Sony join them or will Microsoft join Sony? Or maybe both will keep their current policy. 

What a letdown. Propably the worst thing since...

Of course not.  A lot of the bitching wasn't about getting crossplay, which judging by console sales was not a hot button issue, but about attacking the King of the Hill.  Now that this is done, those same people will try to find something else to complain about concerning Sony, while completely ignoring (or worse, making excuses for) the things their companies of choice have done.  If they were truly about being pro-consumer, all of this pushback would now be turned towards MS for having a paywall for a F2P game.  I won't hold my breath.

@ OP

Personally, I don't really care about crossplay.  And its obvious by sales that the majority of people don't, either.  I am glad that Sony is releasing those accounts, though.  That was really the only negative thing I think they were doing concerning crossplay.

xbox players are a weird bunch of people they bitch to sony that they cant play with ps players. but they dont care xbox players cant play with other xbox players that dont pay for gold its a f2p game it should be f2p. sony atleast lets everyone on its platform play together with f2p games 

"If they were truly about being pro-consumer, all of this pushback would now be turned towards MS for having a paywall for a F2P game."

>Sony's locking out Epic accounts was anti-consumer on a higher level. It transcended platforms.

XBox's F2P policy has no effect on PS4 or Switch.

Very true...most people don't even cared about the cross-play thing. It was just the account hijacking which was the main reason for the outrage, and this is also the main reason why Sony needed to find a deal quickly. Doesn't mean they'll find similar deals with other developers just as easily. 

I don't really give a fudge about Fortnite or Sony, but this is great for gamers. I know it won't happend but I'd love a cross-play for PES, there's not that many people playing it on X1.

It does though. The reason it crossed over was because Fortnite was designed in a way that cross play/accounts was expected by Epic for the game to function as designed. PS locking accounts made that impossible because you couldn't continue your progress if you owned multiple platforms.

Now that cross play exists between all 3 platforms, if someone has a PS4, and a friend has an XB1 but doesn't have Live for whatever reason, you can't play Fortnite with them because XB is locking Fortnite behind a paywall. Fortnite was designed as an F2P game, and MS isn't honoring that, just like how PS wasn't before.

Just like how it was the choice of PS to do what they wanted with cross play, it's also the choice of XB what they want to do with paywalls. The point is if people are logically going to be outraged over PS locking accounts which hinders cross access to Fortnite, then they also need to be outraged that XB is locking access entirely for some to Fortnite.

If you were willing to spend time bashing PS for their anti consumer behavior, then you should be doing the same for MS now. If you aren't, then you will understand why many people weren't taking you seriously before, and most certainly won't in the future. (I mean 'you' in general btw, not you specifically)

Exactly this.  Like I said, I won't hold my breath.  If there isn't a big stink about MS's policy, it just shows a lot that were involved in the PS one were just doing it as a way to bash Sony, not trying to get all of the Big 3 to be more pro-consumer.