New documents have surfaced showing that Sony includes additional fees against publishers and developers for enabling cross-play with other platforms. It's been known that Sony was very much against enabling cross-platform play for years before they finally caved and "let it happen." New confidential documents reveal that Sony was holding out on cross-play in order to counter any potential revenue losses.
As part of the opening for the Epic Games v. Apple case today, a significant amount of evidence and documentation has been made public. This includes Epic's own correspondence with console makers such as PlayStation. A slide from a PlayStation presentation outlines just scummy Sony is when it comes to supporting cross-play.
Sony seemingly forced publishers to pay them a royalty whenever PlayStation players contribute more revenue than a certain percentage to the bottom line of a cross-platform title. This is to "offset the reduction in revenue" from Sony enabling cross-play. In other words, Sony is forcing studios to pay a royalty to them if players are playing on PlayStation but not spending an equal amount to what other platforms are spending.
Furthermore, Sony has "the right to audit" a third-party studio's numbers if they do not feel as though their reporting to Sony is accurate.
The only thing we do not know is whether or not this policy is still in play right now. So far, Sony has not made any sort of a public facing statement about this matter.
Also of note is the fact that Epic Games essentially pleaded with Sony to enable cross-play for Fortnite back in 2018. Among the other documents shared during today's case is an email to Sony from Epic's Joe Kreiner.
Even with this push from Epic, Sony refused to enable cross-play. Sony's Gio Corsi, then senior director of developer relations, outright dismissed the idea of cross-play. He said that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title." He continues on to say that "many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business."
It was only around August 2019 when Sony drafted up their cross-platform revenue share, outlined above, and allowed for studios to enable cross-play on their platform.
