Ever since “Overwatch” first launched on the PS4, PC and Xbox One there have been players who have used both the console and PC versions. This has led to more than a few people actively lamenting the fact that when they purchase skins on say, the Xbox One, they can’t apply those skins to their PC characters. This has been especially frustrating because it’s not a situation where people are getting power ups or weapons but just cosmetic changes.

While the title has been out for quite a while, Blizzard has finally issued an explanation as to why the skins don’t carry over from the PCs to the consoles and vice versa.

Blizzard’s official explanation

One Blizzard representative explained the limitation by saying “each license is its own entity - including cosmetic items,” and went on to say that data, including purchase data is directly tied to a license on the individual PC and console servers.

This data is not able to be transferred from one platform to another because there are different servers connected to each platform. Blizzard continued by saying there just isn’t a way to see what’s on one server or another and transfer it over, even though all the data is being included in “Overwatch” games.

‘Overwatch’ players should be skeptical

As PVPLive points out, there is one big problem with this explanation. There is plenty of proof that Blizzard has used data from consoles and PCs to intermingle before. There is an ability to link a player’s Battle.net account to either a PlayStation Network or Xbox Live account.

By linking these accounts, players are able to earn an Officer D. Va skin when users are playing “Heroes of the Storm.” That game is only available to play on the PC, so there is some switching over of data from one server to another. It should be pointed out this isn’t game data from another, because there isn’t any game data on the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live.

There is also the situation where your data, no matter what platform you are playing on is able to track you statistics in one place.

The “Overwatch” website compiles all the data, from the consoles and the PCs to show you how well, or how bad you are doing. You can also compare this data to other players, despite the fact they might be using different versions.

While Blizzard’s official explanation is believable, it’s probably not the whole story. The skins could be intermingled between platforms but that would mean less money. Loot boxes are purchased on every version of “Overwatch” and allowing people to only buy these skins once would be a big time hit to the wallet.