Fortnite, Epic Games’ take on the zombie survival genre, recently released onto the PlayStation 4, Xbox One PC and Mac platforms.
Interestingly enough, it seems like Fortnite recently appeared to allow briefly, the ability for PlayStation and Xbox players to play together.
This momentous instance of cross-platform play got the attention of many Reddit users, with several reports coming from the popular news aggregation site in which people posted screenshots of themselves playing on competing platforms.
One of the first Reddit users to take note of the cross play phenomena, who goes by the username, PRE_-CISON-_, noticed a Xbox Gamertag amongst PlayStation Network users during a round of Fortnite’s latest Battle Royale game mode. He was able to notice the Xbox Gamertag as Microsoft allows users to include spaces when constructing their usernames on the Xbox platform.
PRE_-CISON-_ went one step further by turning on his own Xbox One and cross-referencing the alleged Xbox Gamertag he spotted on the PlayStation 4 version of Fortnite. He was not only able to find the individual but several other additional Xbox One users that had been in the PlayStation match as well.
Several Redditors since then have posted photos and videos of themselves playing with users on other platforms. Unfortunately, the harmonious cross-play compatibility is now over, with a statement to The Verge from Epic Games stating:
“We had a configuration issue, and it has now been corrected.”
Taking a look at the official FAQs for Fornite, Epic Games officially stated that the game does not support cross-play functionality between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
There have been reports earlier this year that Microsoft is currently in talks with Sony for loosening up restrictions in regards to cross-play between Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms. A feature that Microsoft has embraced with titles such as Minecraft, which supports cross play with PC and the Nintendo Switch.
