Sony is removing Twitter/X integration from PlayStation consoles
Yet another company has announced it will be removing X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, from its products. And this is a big one.
Sony has announced that it is terminating PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4's X integrations this month. The removal of this feature will mean that PS4 and PS5 gamers will no longer be able to publish video game clips and other content directly from their consoles.
"As of November 13, 2023, integration with X (formerly known as Twitter) will no longer function on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles," reads Sony's statement, which was posted on Monday. "This includes the ability to view any content published on X on PS5/PS4, and the ability to post and view content, trophies, and other gameplay-related activities on X directly from PS5/PS4 (or link an X account to do so)."
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PlayStation users will still be able to manually clip gameplay moments, transfer the content to their computer or mobile device, and then post the content from the X app from there. This isn't as intuitive, but that is the workaround that Sony is recommending.
Sony did not say exactly why it was removing PlayStation's X integrations. However, the company is not the first to do so. Sony competitor Microsoft similarly removed the same integration from its Xbox video game console in April. Microsoft also announced the removal of its Twitter integration from its online advertising platform that same month as well.
Other companies, however, like the customer service live-chat company Intercom, did explain why it was removing Twitter integrations when they also made the change in April: Elon Musk's changes to the Twitter API. Namely, the reason was the exorbitant fee Musk decided to charge for API access, which had previously been free.
Earlier this year, Musk depreciated Twitter's API program and instituted a new model that charged exorbitant fees for access. At the time, many apps that utilized Twitter's API needed to shut down as its founders discovered it would cost a minimum of $42,000 per month under the social media service's new API model.
While we do not yet know for sure, Sony likely came to the same conclusion that many other companies also did: X's API wasn't worth the cost.
