Bethesda proudly announced their plans to bring mod support for Skyrim and Fallout 4 on both Xbox One and PS4 consoles.
Microsoft has already embraced the PC way and has been allowing all game developers to treat their console as a computer. They have already announced their next generation console Scorpio and there are no longer any exclusives on the Xbox One, except for Halo 5 Guardians. With such freedom, Bethesda, developers of Fallout 4 found it easier we assume to import mod files and make them run on the Xbox One console.
A similar situation was supposed to have happened on the Playstation 4 as well. However, according to the developers Sony didn’t deliver them the right tools and access to the software infrastructure to make Playstation 4 support mods. There were audio issues and mod files larger than 900MB couldn’t run on the platform. For weeks, Bethesda continued to post updates and said that they were working with Sony to sort it out.
Things didn’t go as planned it seems as they confirmed today that Fallout 4 and Skyrim mods will be restricted to Microsoft’s Xbox One console. Sony wouldn’t allow the team to make modifications that would enable to run the mods as it should. Stating the reason, Bethesda added that Sony has refused to allow user created mods to run on their console.
“We invested considerable time and effort to make mods possible on Playstation 4. We will find other ways to bring them to the console but until Sony allows us to let user created content go online, it will be impossible to provide it for Fallout 4 and Skyrim. We will let you know as and when the situation changes,” said the company in their blog post.
The entire scenario is changing and consoles are undergoing major changes. Nintendo has already jumped from their own platform to Apple iPhone 7, mobiles and are even building the NX hybrid console. Microsoft has decided to merge Windows 10 PCs with Xbox One and the future Xbox Scorpio console.
It’s high time Sony realizes the situation and start allowing developers to do what they want with the existing console. They have already launched the PS4 Pro and the Slim before the PS5 is out. Games are about to change with the launch of the Playstation VR headset. Mod support is such a simple thing in this era and maybe Bethesda might announce something good in their next blog post.