I’m not sure but if Sony will do it for fortnite, a game where doing this would lead to massive amounts of profits being lost, Id hope they’d do it again for a game that isn’t small, but is certainly smaller than fortnite.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. It took them a long time and a lot of backlash to do Fortnite crossplay.
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Crossplay is a much bigger and more difficult thing to do than just the items as well. So I would hope Sony changes their minds.
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The real interesting question is: what will happen when the innards of consoles are placed inside TVs? Sony hinted a direction towards that. If it becomes a mainstream thing, the user base (using controller) may one day outgrow PC for gaming (if you merely go by the fact that there are more TVs per household than PCs).
Or we’ll end up standing with goggles on our heads or in front of a screen convulsing our bodies in an attempt to release an ULT.
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This is an interesting topic so might as well go into detail.
The simplest reason is Console Manufacturers get a portion of sales from microtransactions on their platform.
The Complicated reason is infrastructure cost.
One does not simply “move” items from one platform to another.
After all it has to be instantaneous and requires multiples servers and networks to accomplish.
You need 2 separate login servers
A central authoritive server run by Blizzard. This is where players “login” to and acts like a middle man.
The Secondary Authoritive server run by console manufacturers that allow players to login to the game and connect their console account to the Blizzard account.
Console companies handle Payment transactions and confirmations on their side. Then gives a portion of the sales to the developer. Which means they control the ownership rights of items of that player profile and keep track.
Now this list has to be constantly updated when dealing with tracking from other accounts from other consoles. So it would mean Console company 1 Server -> Tells blizzard servers purchase was made -> Tells Company 2 server that purchase was made.
When dealing with millions of accounts and you want to maintain a 0 delay in updating it is going to cost quite a bit of money. So unless all companies benefit its a problem.
Free unlocks by the Developer are a different story, as they do not need purchase confirmation to handle.
P.S
There are ways around this by Blizzard controlling all information.
It also means No more free unlimited accounts for Console users.
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Here’s the quote and thread. It’s not much but yeah:
(Don’t post in there necrobumping can get you suspensions).
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So it’s more or less a cost factor as opposed to greed or just being incapable? That does clear things up as I didn’t know how it worked. A game as successful as fortnite has the money to spend on something like this I guess.
I imagine Fortnite absorbs the costs because it makes so much from Microtransactions. They likely offered a better deal to the manufacturer in return.
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The console and PC accounts with Fortnite are the same accounts, plus it’s a free to play game. OW is in a different boat as the physical discs are the purchase on console, plus there is no crossplay with the PC version to consider. How would you transfer the account purchase to PC without having them rescind the physical disc, which would make it unplayable on the console, thus robbing Sony/MS of future income.
Hate to nitpick on this, but you can still download the game digitally. Not everybody owns a physical copy of the game when it comes to the Console versions, contrary to belief. You can download it digitally from the respective Console Store by searching it accordingly.
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Players have been able to link their BattleNet accounts to their console accounts since day one.
On PC your Overwatch save data is already stored in Blizzard’s cloud, so you can login on a different computer and have all your stuff and settings. Since your BattleNet account is linked to your XBL/PSN account, you ought to be able to just upload the relevant data from your console straight into Blizzard’s cloud.
I don’t know where you’re getting this idea for authentication and login servers when you’ve already authenticated and logged in.
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I don’t think the disk has anything to do with it, because if you had disk and played the game, then bought it digitally, all your things would still be there, meaning it’s linked to the PSN account. So if they made it through battle net instead it would at least be a step in the right direction I think.
True, true, my point is that it’s just messy because of the mandatory purchase through the console manufacturer instead of it being a free to play game with a separate account system.
I suppose, but I wouldn’t mind re-purchasing the game on another platform if it meant I got my items, if that’s what your referring to.
They’d need to integrate the account system between the three seperate platforms to do this. I think the issue is that there just isn’t the demand for this, and the technical resources that it would require are far beyond what would be profitable or necessarily worthwhile for the small number of people who would benefit from it.
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What do you think “Linking accounts” actually does?
Just because an account is linked doesn’t mean it magically has access to all the data. The information has to be updated on every platform and records kept on every platform to show that user has access to that ingame item.
Each console company keeps track of every sale on their side. They also need to keep track of item unlocks on their side. Otherwise they would not be able to offer console exclusive item unlocks.
The reason for this is to prevent disparity when one system is not working when dealing with authentication.
More importantly to maintain exclusivity and give console companies authoritative control of content on their platform.
The more control and benefit a console company has the more bargaining power a developer can leverage. If Blizzard was a central authority of all sales and had sales directly through their own system, they would lose out on access certain features consoles provide.
It is not as simple as “Hey its linked! - Magic!” As many people deem it to be.
https://i.imgur.com/kVFxKFq.jpg
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You factually can. Blizzard simply has always refused to allow it. Cross-saving and the like has been done for many other games, even with Sony’s attitude against cross-anything for the past few years. If anyone responds telling you they CAN’T do it they are wrong. Blizzard can but won’t and the reason most likely just comes down to money.
You are simply wrong. The fact of the matter is that being able to link account via a third party LIKE Blizzard does mean your data is accessible regardless of where you log on. Blizzard has already displayed they can give you access to stuff on one platform for things you have done on another. Genji and Dva say hello.
I know people just love to hate Epic games, but to use them for an example, they have easily and constantly had cross-play and cross-saving between consoles and PC for multiple games. Paragon had both, Fortnite has always had cross-saves which was why I so happily kept playing when I finally moved from PS4 to PC because I never lost my countless hours worth of stuff and exclusive event rewards.
There is no acceptable excuse against having cross-saves for Blizzard’s games.
That is not about a purchase transaction, but giving a free item.
Which is why people who don’t understand the difference easily confuse two things.
It would be no different than a person saying,
“Oh my god you are wrong if you put fire under an object it will fly. Look at any rocketship.”
Some one who is aware will know it is not the fire which is causing the rocketship to fly, but the pressure created which is being pushed out. Since the same effect can be done with water or air, and it is the pressure which matters.
While those unaware will see things superficially and unable to understand the complicated mechanics.
You know nothing of what you said disputes my point that Blizzard does indeed have a third party account system set up that lets them sync up data as they please. Again, Genji and Dva say hi. Before they made them part of normal loot box drops, you did have to play a different game on a different system to earn them. You know how that was done? Through specific Blizzard accounts, because they can connect them and see what should be available for who on any platform.
They can allow you to have all your unlocks, levels, and more if they wanted. But by not giving it to players they have to buy the game again for other platforms, regrind for normal unlocks, forever lose some limited ones, or try to grind more during events or shell out money still mainly for chances at things they already had. It’s all about money.
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