I can't really say I saw this coming, but now that its here... I feel like I should have. Bethesda has called out the problem with getting mods to work on PS4, and its surprisingly not about their wacky optimization; Instead its that Sony wont let them. That's weird considering I thought they had it up to a very small degree in the past, but this seems consistent with some other things I'm uncovering. The logic is as stated:
Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.So it sounds like its a policy issue. They don't want to allow a game function in which players can tamper with the game openly. That's strange coming from the same guys that published Modnation Racers, LittleBigPlanet, the upcoming Dreams, and have integrated share functionality. Heck PS3 was the first place I've ever seen legit console modding taking place, through Unreal Tournament 3 and this weird USB functionality. You could take files off the computer, officially install them into the game's database, and have fully functional modifiers, characters, and maps made from the PC-side modding community. You'd think we'd be going in this direction of embracing user customs, and shared interactions, and consoles would start to open up, but uh... no, doesn't seem to be the case. For similar reasons as with EA Access (funnily something I'm still a bit happy with), they decided to remind us they deal on a close platform, and wont have any uncontrolled things.
Unfortunately some people don't get the situation, and instantly jumped to fanboy defensive position. I've found claims like "well the mods aren't the big a deal. Really guys, it takes your trophies away, is limited, and is just there to mess around with". Because... ya'know, screw various small feature improvements when we can have trophies, right guys? Then there's just conspiracy-lite stutterings. People actually acting like for the first time that they have a marketing deal with MS, so therefor they must be lying in this case to make sony look bad rather than... just following the contract? Look, they're screwing over some of their own userbase and customers with that, and you don't want to do that when merely following the guidelines for a contract are all you need to do. I'm not going to pretend Bethesda are perfect in this situation, I mean they shouldn't have announced mods for Skyrim's upcoming re-release if they couldn't confirm it, but some of these are a massive stretch. Heck even as much as they are bad with optimizing these things right, they outright admit to breaking Skyrim on the PS3, so why the heck are they going around just now making up a cover story for sony? The very worst they could be doing, is poorly communicating what were in the terms. Maybe something was in there that Sony is rightfully, and entirely, against. We need a couple more specifics before we can assign full blame. However, that doesn't mean Sony is off the hook either... I've seen a lot of people bringing back the Rocket League situation in this PR mess.
This is actually news to me, and I'm a bit shocked about it. In all the time I've heard about games like Rocket League going cross-platform for the first time with consoles, I thought some awesome milestone was achieved. I didn't expect it to go far, much like how limited the range of PC cross-platform works are, but I still thought it was awesome and we were all cheering about it. Turns out everyone was cheering about it except Sony, who has had a few personal people speak favorably, but as a company wont green-light it. Everything is ready, and it could be set to go tomorrow if they wanted to, but its got to go through Sony's approval and they're just sitting on it for months. One article brought up the speculation that its this way because they wont get any advantages by allowing it, but I'm going to flip it on its head and say what are they losing? When did they suddenly change from "This is for the players" to "its got to help us first"? Even if you were to go out for a stretch that goes on for miles, and say that keeping strict networks incentivises friends to buy the same system for sales, that's a stupid thought by this point. We've gone years into this, Sony has leaped ahead in victory with over 40'000'000 sales, and they can't allow cross-platform for an indie soccer/football game, because they're worried it'll somehow be bad business? No I'm not buying that sorry excuse, that's stupid. Its far easier to assume they're just being spiteful, arrogant, and stupid; especially with their PS+ moves, the lackluster info on their stupid half-console upgrade ideas, and now what is likely their problem with modding. Its the early PS3 days all over again, where they thought they were so unbeatable they could just do whatever they want no matter how complicated or bad it was for consumers, or developers. I'm surprised the PS4 Pro didn't pull some Cell 2.0 bullshit to suit their early PS3 rehash.
This is why nobody should ever want anyone to "win" the console wars. As soon as the PS4 was a rocket success, you could begin to see a questionable wind in the air. Aside from basic updates we were kinda already promised, its hard to see what good will Sony did in the same way that they would have in the later PS3 days, or PS4 pre-launch where they were so cheery and about good games for good gaming's sake. For the time being we've lost that Sony that literally gave out free money as part of a hype promotion, and put things like Sly 4 alongside bigger hits like Uncharted 3 up on PS+. Instead we got one that wants to sit by and tell you that you can't play with the xbox kids just because they said so, or rather they barely even give us the respect to even bother saying anything (I'll be almost excited to see any real response to this mod issue from them, but its unlikely). Meanwhile Xbox has been taking some earned jabs at PlayStation lately, including over mods, just like Xbox themselves needed it back when they had to be told how shared games should work. However Xbox would be the same way if they got into this kinda position, as I'm sure we can remember their ridiculous indie guidelines. Don't let your favorite company win the competition. They don't reward you much for it.
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| Not the guy you want to win, but this is what the winner looks like every time |
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