In Destiny 2 news, it's now come to light that Sony reportedly vetoed Bungie's idea that the community should be able to transfer their characters between platforms should they choose to. The Destiny 2 platform transfers would have been a cool feature for its player base, but after the fiasco with the Wavesplitter PS4-exclusive, this comes as no surprise from Sony.
Players were having a field day last week when the Wavesplitter weapon, originally only meant for PS4 customers, was made available to those on other consoles. There's historically always been a delay in the content release cycle across the various platforms that Destiny 2 is available on: PS4 players get the latest material first, with things like maps, weapons, and strikes rolled out for other consoles as far away as a year later.
PCGamer has reported on some digging done by Jason Schreier which alleges that Bungie had long wanted to allow Destiny 2 platform transfers for players, but that Sony had said no because it wanted people to associate the title with the console. On Kotaku Splitscreen, Schreier alludes to this clawing need for platform exclusivity that Sony seems to chronically exhibit. Taking into account the current console-exclusive heavy Destiny 2 DLC line-up and the way that things have been historically for the franchise, the allegations seem more likely than not.
Sony as a company has had a long history of being hostile to any cross-play initiatives proposed by developers, even on major AAA titles like Fallout 76. So far, the only title that has been given a hall pass for cross-play (and likely only because Nintendo was so eager to put its best foot forward) is Fortnite, and that appears to have been because of inescapable market pressure more than anything else. The fact that Sony wants to cling desperately to what it has to perceive as a first-string horse in its stable is a little bemusing; sure, Destiny 2 is a game with decent popularity, but the way that these console exclusives have been handled lately are likely doing more to hinder than help.
It's highly unlikely that Sony is going to get with the times on this cross-play issue. The Destiny 2 platform transfers were probably received by the company as a threat when it comes to consumers potentially moving to other consoles, and considering the company's history with ensuring that other big budget titles are tied to the PlayStation, it's an expected if backward view to have. That being said, with Nintendo making more plays at things like cross-play and VR and hitting it out of the park, soon the commercial pressure to accommodate players who want console flexibility might just be too much for Sony to ignore.
Source: PCGamer