Remember in one of the Batman movies where Alfred informs Bruce Wayne that “some men just want to watch the world burn”? We can’t help but write this article with a wry, Joker-esque smirk: Sony appears to have leaked a Fortnite console bundle, which looks set to release in Europe next month. This is going to go down well after certain other stories, eh?
This looks to be a cheap and cheerful package, featuring a 500GB PlayStation 4 Slim, as well as an exclusive skin and 500 V-Bucks. The bundle – which is due out on 16th July – was accidentally posted to PlayStation Italy’s page before promptly being pulled; we suspect an official announcement will be made in due time.
The timing of this is humorous, of course, because Sony finds itself embroiled in a cross-play controversy; the bigger issue with Fortnite is that, upon playing the game on PS4, your account will be locked to that console forever. It’s unfortunate timing, but the bundle makes a whole lot of sense all the same – Epic Games is making a fortune off PlayStation Store sales, after all.
Update: The bundle also includes the original, co-op Save the World mode. There's no word on a price for the bundle just yet, but we'll try and get confirmation from Sony.
[source dexerto.com]
Comments 62
Lol what a joke. And 500 v bucks? That's NOTHING in terms of Fortnite cosmetic. ONE skin can cost 1500 v bucks. You can't even buy anything with 500 v bucks.
Lol sony doesn't give a f*ck
This is a distraction from the cross play issues but is a good thing viva la Sony
@wiiware Nor does Epic, it would seem. It's almost like companies only care about cash.
Sony is like "Huh? What's that? You want cross-play Fortnite? How about a console bundle instead with exclusive content. There ya go."
i guess if the PS4 version is getting exclusive stuff then it makes more sense not being able to use your account on other systems
My 13 year old teenage son just said "ugh, but why?" and walked out of the room.
Seriously it's a free to play game. Bundle PS4 w/ KH or Uncharted or Spiderman. It's a free-to-play mobile game. smh
@rjejr Didn't happen o' clock.
Regardless, it's a very popular free-to-play game. I've no doubt there are people walking into shops asking for the "Fortnite box". Makes sense to me.
@NinjaWaddleDee
There are emotes which cost 200 vbucks and also 500 vbucks
@get2sammyb "Didn't happen o'clock" says the bloody journalist
Who are you to determine what happened or didn't happen with no evidence?
@Knuckles-Fajita I'm not a journalist, but I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything at all. Enlighten me.
@get2sammyb "Fake news"
You write about news, on a website, for money. This is your job. Games journalism.
My point was though, you're in no position to state if something did or did not happen on the other side of the world without proof.
If someone wants a console to play Fortnite with, its a smart buy?
Your not forced into a online subcription, when you get it, to play Fornite (like you will on Xbox or Switch).
Ontop of that, it ll run better than on the Xbox One S / Switch, and its cheaper than the Xbox One X.
Non forced online subcription to play it is a huge advantage imo, much bigger deal than non crossplay with other consoles.
Esp if this is something ment for kids & teens.
Lmao good job sony
Plus the exclusive skin is huge bonus about playing this game on PS4. Add to that at playing on PlayStation network that with the Vita adds mobility.
Can imagine a kid getting this and thinking of it only as a Fortnite machine, then 400hrs of Fortnite later discovering the PlayStation Store and being like “WTF? There is loads of games on Fortnite!”
@LaNooch1978 come to think of it, the PS4 Slim does kinda resemble a sandwich. Now I'm hungry. Just not for the Fortnite filling. Can I have turkey instead?
@get2sammyb @rjejr Only the battle royale mode is free, right? Fortnite itself isn't.
Lol love you Sony. Keep it up
@Octane I think it will be eventually, but right now you have to pay for the co-op mode.
@RidingMower @RidingMower Thing is though if you want that mobility of playing on Vita, wouldn't you want that running better (As you yourself say is the benefit of the PS4 version over the others) on Switch and running natively off of the system rather than streamed via Remote Play, with all the buttons available to play it?
Also, seemingly Fortnite will NOT require the Nintendo Switch Online subscription. The store page doesn't mention it in any capacity unlike Minecraft, Rocket League, Splatoon etc.
@get2sammyb Well, in that case the bundle still makes some sense I think.
Yeah, arrogant Sony is back. The PS5 press conference, whenever and wherever it happens, will be highly interesting and could get ugly.
From what I've been reading, the biggest issue people have seems to be the inability to transfer your progress from PS4 to elsewhere, rather than the lack of actual cross-play.
Now, I don't play Fortnite so I don't really care, but as I've said before, I'm sure Epic could resolve this issue pretty easily if they really wanted to.
With The Walking Dead, Telltale patched the game to allow you to upload a save from Season 2 to their website from any platform (except Vita) and import it into Season 3 on any other platform to transfer your progress.
I don't see that there's any reason Epic couldn't work something similar. I guess it could be contractual, but it seems unlikiely since there is precedent for doing so.
@NinjaWaddleDee maybe they are doing a 500-thing. And will be charging 500 USD for it hahaha
@Paranoimia uf! Special treatments? I mean, this bundle is not bad for Fortnite, maybe "a bundle for you" and "some limited accounts for me" kinda deal?
@get2sammyb @Octane they updated it, co-op is included.
""Update: The bundle also includes the original, co-op Save the World mode. There's no word on a price for the bundle just yet, but we'll try and get confirmation from Sony.""
@RidingMower do you really not nees PS+ to play Fortnite?
This "leak" looks completely unintentional and without ulterior motives to contain the Fornite fans of the PSN community. #dope
All this talk about Fortnite and I still haven't played it since before BR was introduced. I even just added Devil May Cry 4 to my cart on PSN and it said "People who bought this also bought" and listed 4 types of Fortnite v-bucks!
I'm starting to get some FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Anyone else in the same boat?
Why would you buy a ps4 just for fortnite if you try to buy save the world its free this year you could also get a ps4 for cheap like less than what Sony want or Argos tesco asda and game I have a 1teg and don't pay over £200 I'm a Sony person but instead of robbing people make are survers better
@hotukdeals right. So Sony is giving 1 emote? That really doesn't seem like a lot.
@RidingMower You aren't forced into a subscription on the other consoles either when playing Fortnite. AND those consoles have cross play.
@Octane Yeah, that's what my kid told me after he came back into the room and laughed reading what I had posted. I told him it was stupid to bundle a free game with a console b/c anybody who buys any PS4 can download the game for free, then he told me only part of it was free and most people pay for the rest. He still thinks it's a stupid idea though.
@get2sammyb "free-to-play game"
And that's why it doesn't make any sense to me, anybody who buys any PS4 can download it. Bundle a real game like Spiderman, save $60, that makes sense.
And you know he said it or I wouldn't have posted it, we've been over this. The didn't happen o'clock was funny though, probably b/c we both know you were wrong.
@Gamer83 Why are they arrogant for creating a console bundle with the biggest game in the world right now? How is that arrogance?
@rjejr It's marketing. Fortnite is popular. People want "the Fortnite". Sony has a console with Fortnite on the box. It's not rocket science, is it?
@get2sammyb I thought that the only part of Fortnite that is free-to-play was the Battle Royale mode.
Probably the game that is included in the bundle is Fortnite Founders Pack.
@HungryWolf Yeah it comes with the co-op mode, too.
This’ll sell gangbusters
@clvr Free-To-Play games don't require PS+.
So yes Fortnite is F2P on PS4.
Wow, a bundle for the uneducated YouTube masses.
@Fight_Teza_Fight thank you for your reply, mate! See, I haven’t had access to my PS4 for a long time now, and even when I did, I still didn’t download any F2P games 😆
59.99 POUNDS!!!... that is like $80 dollars.
@rjejr ‘My 13 year old teenage son just said "ugh, but why?" and walked out of the room.’
You know your product has failed when even the target audience shrugs at it 😉
@get2sammyb
Sony knows full well what's going on right now. This is a middle finger to all that. Can't say it's not. That is a bit of arrogance on their part.
Who in their sane mind would buy this?
@AFCC
A person in the market for a PS4 who has a bunch of friends with one and they're talking up Fortnite? I don't think it's that odd of a bundle even if the game is free-to-play. We've reached the point in this generation where all sorts of bundles will show up to get those last-minute sales.
I think Im lost with all this cross play stuff...
Why should you be able to switch your character over from the ps4 to the switch? Has any other game in the history of gaming allowed you to transfer progress from one system to another?
Also, there's no point in allowing cross play with the switch as it can be hacked easily and nintendo cant stop it, so... Yeah please dont do that. And xbox has like 100 people... Why arent people crying about cross play between ps4 and the atari jaguar ffs... Im assuming most of the people complaining do that for a living.
50 comments on a bundle, must be full of cry babies.
Come on Sony, I know you guys are aware of the whole cross-play situation, if this bundle sells poorly they shouldn't be surprised. I'm really hoping they figure things out with Epic games soon.
This would be troll of the year if this srsly happens and pls Sony don't give us crosspplay with xbox and Nintendo but unlock acc that efed up.
@Gamer83 C'mon man, I don't want to call you out, but that's nonsense. You realise PlayStation is a multinational company with tens of thousands of employees, right?
In this instance, PlayStation Europe's marketing department — which is given the mandate to sell consoles in European countries — probably struck a deal with Epic months ago to create a Fortnite bundle for the summer. Said marketing department probably doesn't even know who's responsible for putting a red stamp on the cross-play thing. That's all happening in a different part of the company.
Nevertheless, this bundle leaked in Italy, so they clearly weren't ready to announce it yet anyway.
I get what you're saying, but you're looking at things from the perspective that PlayStation is ran by an evil man in a dark room with a white cat on his lap. The reality is that this is a gigantic company with tons of separate cogs.
I've seen hints of it myself when dealing with Sony UK, but that's a whole different story for a different day.
Lol @ Sony, funny move. PS4 to win June/July consoles sold?!
Does this come with a plus subscription...
It's like they're saying "you want this swill? Here. Have a f*****g bundle. Now go away".
Zero effort.
That puts a gap, isn't it? Since PS4 has exclusive content, it could be an excuse to prevent cross progression. I say keep them coming, I'd love a Delsin uniform or a Nathan Drake one. Street Fighter V and Fortnite collab... SONY!!! YOU NEED THIS NOW!!
@Splints cross-play is just the general optional commodity stuff that no company is obliged to do but many fans love demanding. As for the account controversy, the core issue here that it's not some kind of PSN account you make and use exclusively on PSN. It's a third party account you can have used on PC and then linked to PSN before you got yourself an Xbox or a Switch - but if/when you do the latter, the reports are that your account is stuck glued to PSN console-wise - not only you can't use the account's progress and purchases across different console brands (which, again, would be just a not quite unexpected inconvenience), but you can't unlink the account from PSN once you have so much as started downloading the game.
It's this whole "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave" thing that catches people off guard - and unless it has always been in PS4-exclusive EULA (PS4 exclusive because there's reportedly no mention in Epic's own general one) that nobody typically reads, people's anger does have a point here. It's not like Sony and Epic aren't legally entitled to have such footnotes in their partnership either - but some clarity would be very welcome here. Why Sony won't just add a line to PS Store description at least post factum (correct me if they already have) is puzzling indeed.
But "muh crossplay" is merely an extrapolation here. Just like the tabloid narrative about competition jabs - Nintendo and Xbox are expectedly touting crossplay because it can qualify as a neat extra selling point for both, but everyone and their gamepad are claiming it's implicitly targeting Sony. Are we fans so bored of keeping console wars alight that we want the industry to get back there?
@nhSnork Thank you for clarifying a lot of that for me. (I dont have any intention of playing fortnite). Has it been clarified that Sony is blocking account transfers? Most people moving accounts would be coming from the PS4... Has anyone tried moving from Switch to PS4?
As much as cross-play is a feature they can market... We all know if they were in Sony's shoes they would be doing what Sony is.
When you are the cool kid with the best toys sometimes you have to leave the playground because everyone wants to play with you.
In what game are accounts NOT locked to the console your playing on? all multi-platform games are like that! Want to play on another console make a account on that one!
"Hey guys, wanna hear a funny joke?"
a 500Gb hard drive????? When did they bring that small blast from the past back?
@Gamer83 Seems a little weird to me when you can get the mp version for free and have a good bundle with even 2 games!
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