‘Fortnite’ PS4 Accounts Won’t Work on Switch (Report)

By Stefanie Fogel

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – PlayStation 4 owners who are trying to log into “” on Switch are finding their accounts won’t work on Nintendo’s platform.

Kinda Funny Games’ Greg Miller posted a screen grab of the error message. “Login failed,” it reads. “This ‘Fortnite’ account is associated with a platform which does not allow it to operate on Switch. Neither the ‘Fortnite’ website nor Epic Customer Service are able to change this. To play ‘Fortnite’ on Switch, please create a new account.”

“PlayStation, please fix this. Not allowing me to sign-in to ‘Fortnite’ Switch with my Epic account because it’s linked to PS4 is tone deaf and points more to fear than market dominance,” Miller wrote. “It does the opposite of what you want — it makes me think about moving to Xbox for ‘Fortnite.’”

Switch owners can play with others on PC, Mac, Xbox One, and mobile devices, according to Epic Games PR manager Nick Chester on Twitter .

This is not the first time Sony has refused to work with other companies to support online games. Last year, when Microsoft announced it was bringing cross-play to all versions of “Minecraft,” Sony chose not to play ball. It later defended the decision to Eurogamer and said it was to protect younger gamers.

“We’ve got to be mindful of our responsibility to our install base,” PlayStation global sales and marketing head Jim Ryan said at the time. “‘Minecraft’ — the demographic playing that, you know as well as I do, it’s all ages but it’s also very young. We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe. Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it’s something we have to think about very carefully.”

Variety contacted Epic Games and Sony to ask if they’re working on this issue. They did not immediately respond.