Fortnite creator Epic was willing to take Sony to court over Fortnite cross-play across all platforms, CEO Tim Sweeney revealed.
That’s what Sweeney revealed as part of the ongoing court case between Epic and Google. As part of this case, Epic’s CEO took the stand to testify about the company’s stance on open platforms and how he and Epic would be willing to get full support for cross-play on PlayStation. As most of you may remember, Sony wasn’t a big fan of cross-play until it finally relented in 2018 and announced that it would allow Fortnite cross-play support with Xbox One and Switch. Interestingly, earlier that year, Sony said that having cross-play was not “a failure, no matter the size of the title.”
As part of his testimony in the Epic/Google case, Sweeney now provided insight into Epic’s stance on the matter if Sony hadn’t allowed cross-play after all. “We were willing to fight them in court if necessary,” the Epic CEO said. As covered by GamesIndustry.biz, this conversation was related to a 2018 email that Sweeney sent to Sony’s Head of Global Partner Relations and Development at sony Interactive Entertainment, Phil Rosenberg (then Senior Vice President, Head of Global Publisher and Developer Relations.
The email sent by Epic’s CEO read as follows: “Please inform Kodera-san, and be clear, that Epic will allow full interoperability between all platforms in Fortnite at an opportune time in the future… we are prepared to pursue this course with all available resources, wherever it takes us and for however long.”
Strong words from Sweeney indeed. Fortunately, Sony slowed down some time later and Fornite became the first game to support full cross-play between mobile, PC, and all major consoles. Several months later, cross-play was also enabled for Rocket League.