The Red Dead Redemption 2 PlayStation 4 Pro bundle was revealed by Sony on Monday, however, one thing that Sony Interactive Entertainment America didn’t mention with this reveal was that select online content will be made available first on PlayStation 4.
Rockstar Games news focused website Rockstar Intel first highlighted this earlier Wednesday, when they discovered that the back of the North American PlayStation 4 Pro bundle has a graphic that states that PS4 users “will receive access to select online content first.” While not featured in the EU blog, the graphic is featured in the front of both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro bundle that will go on sale in the European Union. The US version of the box states that the content will be exclusive for 30 days.
This isn’t the first time that this has been done, as Microsoft and Activision had a deal during the Xbox 360 generation where online content for Call of Duty games went to Xbox 360 users first, and this practice continued into the PlayStation 4 years – you guessed it, with Activision and Destiny. Where this hasn’t continued outside of Activision, the egregious nature of how the exclusivity of content worked with Destiny and Destiny 2 was massively decried by gamers on PC and Xbox platforms. Destiny and Destiny 2 owners on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 received the online expansions for Destiny exclusively for one full year, which at that point, Xbox and PC gamers were given access to the content that PlayStation owners have already completed.
While not as egregious as Activision, Rockstar is still contributing to this predatory and exclusionist practice – which for the record, I have decried since the Xbox 360 days. There is no reason why this should still be a thing going into this current era of gaming, in any fashion. I can somewhat understand console exclusives, and that’s only because of the advent of 2nd party publishing, such as Insomniac Games’ Sunset Overdrive on Xbox One and Spider-Man on PS4. However, this practice of content being exclusive to a platform for X amount of days or months is – in this writer’s eyes – intentional sabotage, and should not be tolerated by anyone.
In terms of Red Dead Redemption 2, which releases on October 10 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, we’ll just have to wait and see what “select online content” means.
