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Imagine making a site so widely-used that the two biggest video game console manufacturers in the world put a dedicated button on their controllers so players could post to it. Now imagine screwing that up for no reason.
We don’t have to imagine, because that’s what’s happened with Elon Musk’s Twitter, which is now X. First, Xbox got rid of Twitter integration back in April, but now so has PlayStation, as Sony has announced that it will no longer support posting on Twitter from its dedicated Share button on the controller, which was previously the easiest way to share screenshots and video clips on social media.
The reason is that Elon Musk has skyrocketed the prices of API access to Twitter, especially for large scale companies like Sony and Microsoft. For companies at that scale, it starts at $42,000 a month with the highest plan reportedly $210,000 a month for 200 million tweets processed. In other words, it’s potentially millions of dollars per year that these companies simply have no interest in suddenly paying, after years of being able to use the functionality for far cheaper.
It was symbiotic relationship that previously worked out well for all three parties, Twitter, PS/Xbox and gamers, but now Elon’s persistent Twitter screw-ups have collapsed the entire thing. Now on PlayStation, for instance, players will have to use the dedicated PlayStation app to download and post clips, a much more irritating process that I doubt many people will bother with. I certainly wont. There are jokes that we are about to head back into a “shaky cam” era of posting console screens and video, recording off an actual TV, though perhaps it’s not even that much of a joke at this point.
I’m curious if Facebook might sweep in with an opportunity here for its Twitter-fighter Threads, as allowing easy access for PlayStation and Xbox players to post screenshots through that platform if Twitter is off the table may boost its fortunes, and allow at least some place for gamers to easily share on the internet, even if Threads is still far from being widely adopted.
(Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
There are many companies that have ditched the Twitter API after Musk’s absurd price hikes, and Sony is just the latest. Twitter continues to try and squeeze revenue wherever it can after users have dropped and advertisers have fled in the Musk era. The latest scheme involves charging anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 for defunct usernames, as first revealed by Forbes.
All of this is somewhat ironic given that Musk himself is a huge gamer, wanting to bring streaming to Twitter and constantly posting about his love for games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Diablo 4. But I’m guessing he’s more of a PC guy.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
