Sorry Sony Brothers and Sisters, No Mods for You.

So the last 24 hours haven't been as kind to Sony as they should of been, after all they announced not only a slim PS4 but also an suped up PS4 Pro. It wouldn't be wrong to expect cries of delight but the narrative hasn't been as positive as it should be (outside the core PS fan-base). Fan's are question why the Pro is weaker than Scropio (4.2 TF v 6.2TF), questions about shared PS4/Pro game library, and why doesn't the Pro support ultra Blu-ray when the Xbox One S supports it. 

Now Bethesda has stepped forward with some more news. PlayStation Fallout fans have been waiting desperately for mod support for Fallout 4. Today Bethesda finally gave an answer and sadly its not good. Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition have had their mod support official canceled. The reason for this final solution? Well its all apparently down to Sony's attitude towards mods. Here's what Bethesda has to say about it.

"After months of discussion with Sony, we regret to say that while we have long been ready to offer mod support on PlayStation 4, Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.

"Like you, we are disappointed by Sony’s decision given the considerable time and effort we have put into this project, and the amount of time our fans have waited for mod support to arrive. We consider this an important initiative and we hope to find other ways user mods can be available for our PlayStation audience. However, until Sony will allow us to offer proper mod support for PS4, that content for Fallout 4 and Skyrim on PlayStation 4 will not be available.

"We will provide an update if and when this situation changes."

This shouldn't be such a surprise as it is. Bethesda has had real trouble getting mods to work with the limitations that Sony had placed on them. Not just the 900MB storage limit but issues with audio codecs which Sony evidently refused to budge on. The PS4 uses an proprietary audio codec which without either giving A) modders access to or B) Bethesda a means of conversion meant PS4 mods couldn't feature any audio not found in the base game/DLC. I'm sure we'll get more information as fans bombard Bethesda with questions/praise/insults.

Its not hard to believe Bethesda's comments on this, They have always had issues with the PlayStation versions of their titles. Lets not forget MS paid for 1 month exclusivity on Skyrim only for the PS launch of the DLC to be so marred in technical problems it wouldn't launch properly for nearly a year.

Between Fallout, Skyrim and Ark (admittedly that's different) it was looking like consoles was finally getting real mod support. Hopefully our PS Brothers and Sisters can make Sony see the error of their ways, nothing like a bit of consumer pressure to right the ship.

Abe's Take

This will certainly hurt sales of Skyrim on PS4 since the most hyped feature of the upcoming relaunch and it depending on how Sony responds could affect PS4 Pro's relationship with Bethesda. It's possible if Sony responds "well" to Bethesda's announcement, they might adjust the PS4 Pro to support mods but if they respond aggressively returning with an allegation of their own it could push Bethesda into Microsoft's camp, We all ready know Fallout VR is heading to Scorpio, could that now become exclusive for reasons beyond power?