Fortnite: Why do so few pros play on console?

While analyzing the results of the last to Fortnite Champion Series qualifiers I couldn’t help but notice the discrepancy between the PC tournaments and the console tournaments. It seemed like almost every famous professional player ultimately played on PC over consoles. Why is that?

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Who is the best Fortnite player on console?

🏆 1st Place Q2 ($1,300) 🏆 pic.twitter.com/JkYJP6whWv

— Timbers Yasir (@YasirFN_) August 3, 2020

1st ($1300) 🏆 pic.twitter.com/52NK39RSdh

— tsg.paradox (@88_paradox) August 2, 2020

I want to note that when I say console, I don’t just mean controller players. Any pro can plug a controller into their PC and join the PC tournaments using controllers as an input. Likewise, anyone who prefers mouse and keyboards could do the same, albeit with a little more setup involved.

However, the Fortnite Champion Series saw fit to divide the tournament between PC players and console players, so it’s a little surprising that there isn’t a more even divide in the Fortnite competitive community.

Currently, the highest scoring players from the first and second Fortnite Champion Series console qualifiers are both from the North America West server, TSG Pàradox and Timbers Yasir. Despite their high performance, these players have significantly less attention that PC pros who failed to even make the top 200 in the same tournament for their regions.

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Where is Fortnite played most?

crazy how an underrated player does good for once and the community instantly assumes hes cheating

— Saf (@Safarooniee) August 2, 2020

It’s hard to find hard, up to date numbers about the Fortnite playerbase. The last reported figure is that the game achieved 350 million registered players, and has a count of 6.5 million players as of writing. The most recent monthly count comes from 2018, but still boasts 78.3 million.

What isn’t available, however, is accurate data of exactly where Fortnite is being played. Given that the game got its start on PC, it could be fair to assume that the PC community is the biggest, but Fortnite began a long time ago. Additionally, console releases and cross play were introduced very early in the game’s lifespan, and so for more players they likely decided to play on whatever system was most comfortable for them.

Given the widespread need for a computer in much of the western world, it’s fair to suggest that the PC Fortnite community is simply larger because more people have access to it, but that fails to account for why the pro community would ignore consoles.

The Fortnite Champion Series prize pool is split evenly between PC and console tournaments, so it would make sense for pros to move to the less populated tournament to increase their odds of winning.

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Should tournaments still be split by platform?

tHe BeSt FoRTnItE COnSole PLaYeR.https://t.co/I12RKEb1cU pic.twitter.com/eB7B4bPVxe

— Excite (@ExciteXL) July 30, 2020

Perhaps the most confusing part of all of this is that Fortnite has a well developed cross play feature that is somehow ignored. Additionally, the biggest reason to split the communities would be so that Fortnite could be balanced by input device, with controllers having much stronger aim assist on console than on PC.

However, if these balance changes end up altering the skills required to play the game, is it fair to imply that they’re the same game? Additionally, with many pros having played extensively with controllers in the past, couldn’t they just as easily make the switch to consoles?

For now, this is the situation Fortnite has chosen to impose on its community. While there are good reasons for making these decisions, hopefully some of the console pros will get recognized by the community in the near future.