Microsoft's decision to suddenly start supporting cross-platform play after years of blocking it – odd anomalies excluded – was announced expertly. Despite the likes of Nintendo and Sony allowing gamers to play with PC players for years – and, in the case of upcoming game Dreii, even together – the Redmond firm still managed to engineer an advantage by publicly inviting the Japanese giants to a party that it's both already been attending.
It was a genius reveal because it immediately backed PlayStation into a position where it could come out looking like the bad guy; should it not accept the terms of the Xbox team's sudden change of heart, then it would almost certainly be painted as the bad guy. But to its credit, despite being put on the spot, Sony's response has been good: it's re-iterated that it's always supported cross-platform play, and that it's open to having discussions with devs who may want to cross the console divide.
And speaking with Eurogamer.net, Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has added a little more humility to the company's official line: "PC is an open platform so it's much more straightforward. Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is that they are trying to accomplish. We also have to look at the technical aspect – and the technical aspect could be the easiest. We have to look at policy issues and business issues as well."
This strikes us as a perfectly reasonable response. Sony has always been open to cross-platform play, and it looks like that hasn't changed – but Microsoft has more or less sprung this situation on the Japanese giant, so it's not unreasonable that it should want to investigate a little more before making any firm promises. One could argue that the Xbox maker should have contacted Nintendo and Sony in private before going public with this – but there are no PR wins in that, are there?
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 27
What sort of latency would rise of tomb raider have...
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi the same as it would have normally.
Stupid, and nobody benefits. The only 'win' here is it gives one less reason for somebody to buy a competing console.
@Grawlog There is no precedent for PlayStation and Xbox play because up until Monday Microsoft didn't allow it full-stop. It's their policy which has changed.
@At0micash They kinda did, though, didn't they? Their announcement was clearly geared towards a PR win as they painted themselves as an innovator when realistically they're just catching up with everyone else. There's nothing wrong with that, of course — all companies do the same. It's what they should be doing.
I'm sorry you don't like the site, but maybe you should stop visiting if you're not a fan... It's always been our policy to add a bit of opinion to the latest news - you're welcome to disagree, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "cancer" just because you disagree with our stance on this particular topic.
@Gamer83 Actually it would be a huge win for players. Think of how large the multiplayer pools would be for a game like Black Ops 3 or Rocket League. You will be able to but the console you want not forced to buy an Xbox One for example cause that's what all your friends have and you want to play with them. Plus it one step closer to uniting us all as gamers rather then PS and Xbox players.
Not sure how you will see that no one will benefit from this.
Ok guys let's get this article back on track as @get2sammyb said if your unhappy with this site your more then welcome to leave or use the Suggestion section in the forums to discuss what's wrong with the site. Any further comments derailing the article here will be removed.
You have been warned.
Thanks for understanding.
@Neolit And if game makers don't take part in it we just continue what we have, so I don't see how that would hurt anyone.
@Grawlog I don't feel I have said that, though? Maybe I've poorly presented my points.
@Tasuki Maybe it'll hurt financially, maybe it just means we can't cry about stuff. I'm actually curious about how they'll work it; Are we just going to get bigger online pools, and no way to communicate with people from the opposite system? That sort of thing.
I'm not exactly sure where I fall on this, but I'm for it if this console war crap is buried. (Yeah, wishful thinking I know)
@Tasuki
That was ny fault for not putting my statement in context. Gamers win but neither Sony or MS do from a business perspective and lets face it, if both companies thought it was a good idea why hasn't this been a thing until now? MS could've extended the olive branch last gen but certainly was in no hurry to. Now when its getting its a** whipped this is a good idea and MS is all the sudden a nice friendly corporation... You'll have to excuse me if I'm not buying it.
@xpacerx not 12 months then...
@get2sammyb To add to @Grawlog point, I am sure that Sony had no intention of allowing cross-play with its 'console' rivals before MS launched the Xbox. I know it was not so much of an issue because 'online' gaming was not as big (or possible) before but we know Sony and Ninty had a 'falling' out before the PS1 came out. It was unheard of for ANY 'console' brands to offer any form of cross-platform networking - you never had Nintendo and Sega offering networking.
The PC has always been seen as separate from 'console' gaming and Sony even made PC's at one point. Playing on your PS2/3 and Sony Vaio is still playing on Sony devices. Cross-play in the past was incredibly rare - even between PC and Macs.
At one point, it was unheard of for Sonic to be on 'anything' other than a Sega and would never have appeared in the same game as Mario. Just because certain 'walls' were up, we know they can be 'torn' down too.
I can see the odd game - like Rocket League becoming Cross-plat between consoles but I can't see the big MP AAA franchises opting in anytime soon - especially those with 3rd party deals. It may not be possible to do things like party chat either. Can PS4 chat with PC players in SFv? If you can, then maybe it would work...
@At0micash I totally agree with you in that neither has said anything aggressive or intended to offend - 100 per cent. These are gigantic companies, though, and my opinion is that Microsoft's announcement was intended to put Sony's feet to the fire. Sony does the same thing back all of the time - it's how organisations work.
Our style is our style. From my perspective, I'd rather have this conversation with you, rather than have zero comments at the bottom of this article. We can debate and disagree, and as long as we both remain polite, I don't really see a problem with that. In fact, that's a good thing from my perspective!
At the end of the day, it is just video games... It's not like we're reporting on wars and stuff...
Did I click on Eurogamer by mistake? 😃 I'm sorry what we're we talking about again, oh yeah that's it cross platform play. I can only see this as a good thing, regardless of who's idea it was, I have a few friends with the enemy console (sorry) and neither side is ever going to buy the other console to play a handful of games together. So for me to able to play Rocket League and such would be a godsend.
However surely the biggest issue in all this would be how you actually chose to play with your own friends on a rival platform. Will you have xbox live friends on your PS4? If you can't match up with specific people then I really don't see the point
@At0micash It's all good! Thanks for the feedback!
Eh, last gen I would have cared more, but I know literally no one that owns an Xbox One. As in, real life friends, everyone I'm aware of has gone for a PS4 this time round.
At the end of the day, we are all gamers and despite our many millions, it is still not considered a serious pastime by many in the mainstream. We should all, regardless of device, feel love for our fellow gamer (unless you are the toerag who kept sniping me in the Uncharted 4 Beta). This, therefore, is great. Sure it's a PR move but this big business - everything is.
For the record, the reason I come to Pushsquare is that the writing and the community are pretty respectful of users of different consoles.
@At0micash
The reason gamers seem more divided than ever is because people create accounts at websites just to throw words like fanboy around when people dare to question their favorite corporation. In this case MS. There is nothing wrong with questioning any of these companies and certainly MS deserves zero benefit of the doubt. I've also heavily criticized Sony, on this very website, and Nintendo. Gamers as a whole need to be united but we need to be united in our criticism of these companies rather than kissing their a$$es. That's the problem. Sony and MS have both been guilty of some bs and that's why some of us don't let them slide on anything even when it seems harmless. These are businesses, there's always some kind of agenda involved. Just because people question that and don't say things like 'oh thank you MS for opening up to cross platform play' (which it could've done last gen but didn't because for most of it MS held a significant sales advantage and knew there was no benefit from a business perspective) doesn't mean they're necessarily favoring Sony. If people just sat back and approved everything these companies did there'd be a whole lot of bs going. It's bad enough with all the broken a$$ games we get for $60.
@Jcp83
What's hilarious is people coming to a brand-specific website and expecting to see the writers and most of the community pandering to MS and Nintendo. I actually agree with some of the comments that sometimes the fanboyism does get out of control, but it's no worse here than anywhere else (in fact I'd argue of this trio of websites, Nintendo Life is still by far the worst in that regard) and there's a simple solution. If you dislike the website, leave. Not a hard concept. I don't go to Nintendo Life and tell everybody there they're a bunch of Nintendo fanboys and need to love Sony... People are so f**king stupid sometimes.
@At0micash Self-destructive, a good phrase to describe why I stopped caring about gamer politics. Well put.
As for your question, I don't have the best answer but since you mentioned sales, my thought is that if cross play allows you to interact with the opposite system, complete with a chat/party/group/picnic feature (wishful thinking honestly), then there wouldn't be a need to get a game on a specific console, and sales from games would go more evenly or less skewed towards one system I guess? I'm probably missing the point, but that thought hit me, and I thought I'd share it.
@At0micash
Pretty much all your posts since you've joined have been how this site is a 'cancer' and how the PlayStation fanbase is the worst, blah blah blah. When I can easily pull up youtube and show plenty of examples of why the Xbox One fanbase is the dumbest but I don't do that because as an owner of both consoles and somebody who is active in both communities I know each has its good and bad sides. It is what it is. I also know if I'm going to, once again, a brand-specific site, it's not going to skew to the competition's favor. I'd think that's simple reasoning but then I read comments here from the trolls from Nintendo Life and the odd Xbox fan who joins up and realize commonsense doesn't run rampant in the gaming community and usually the ones who make the accusation of fanboy are the biggest themselves. It's funny you come on here and call out everybody when you have no posting history and while there are some people you'd probably be right to call out there are also a good number like myself who have posting histories to back up that while we may prefer PlayStation we are certainly not fanboys or 'cancers' to this community. The only posting history you have is a few days worth of that you're now primarily an Xbox gamer, Sony sucks and the fans suck. If I did that at a Nintendo or Xbox specific site or even a Sony specific site I'd also be called a troll and rightly so because that's exactly what it comes off as. And because everybody always gets it twisted, I could give a rat's a$$ what somebody likes because we all have different preferences but when something looks like trolling it probably is trolling. I don't try to go out of my way to be a pr*ck about it but I'm really getting sick of the number of a-holes who do that and if that isn't your intention then all I can say is to change your approach. You can make your point without saying everybody who runs this website or visits it is the scum of the Earth who should rot in hell.
That aside. To answer your question, there's more PlayStation 4s out there than Xbox Ones, right now. It stands to reason then that some of these Xbox One-only owners have plenty of friends who own a PS4 and many of these people may only own a PS4. Obviously if you're friends you're going to want to game together but right now the only way to do that is if you own the same console. Cross-platform gaming would benefit all of us from a pure gamer perspective because it would mean being able to game with others on our preferred platforms but from a business standpoint it doesn't benefit Sony because it is now one less reason to buy a PS4. Of course, as I stated in my other comments, it doesn't benefit MS much either, the difference is now MS is doing whatever it can to come off as the 'good guy' and people have bought into Phil Spencer's crap hook, line an sinker, which is hilarious given he was part of Don Mattrick's staff which approved the original terrible Xbox One policies but lets just pretend that never happened... Here's the real question. If cross-platform online play is such a wonderful idea - and for the record, I would embrace it and have wanted to do so for at least 10 years now - why didn't MS, which had numerous chances to broach this subject over the last decade+ mention anything last gen? Obviously you already know the answer is that it's because MS would've had no benefit, it was ahead and allowing cross platform would've been one less reason for the people dragging their feet to buy an Xbox. But right now MS needs to score every PR point it can, that's what it's doing here and to be fair Spencer has done a brilliant job at that. Not a conspiracy, not 'fanboy' hate, just simple facts.
@Grawlog
I'll chill out when people stop visiting this website and creating accounts just to stir sh*t up. I love seeing people go in on Sony because I do it as much as anybody but there's a difference between constructive criticism and wanting to see some changes that would benefit the brand and flat-out trolling.
Also, my response wasn't to you or directed at you. It was a general statment about what I've seen going on in this community lately. If you don't think you fall into that category, great, I don't really know what else to tell you. Not apologizing for my comments or lashing out at people anymore though because the crying about 'favoritism' on a brand-specific website is getting ridiculous at this point. I'll call out stupidity when I see it but aside from the very obvious enthusiasm the writers show for Rise of the Tomb Raider not selling great on Xbox One, which I did call them on, there hasn't been anything terrible on here. Lets just face the facts. The largest community in this trio of websites is the Nintendo Life one and the Nintendopes are extremely p*ssed right now that Sony is having success with PS4 and don't know how to act so like children they are visiting this website and trolling and telling the writers not to be happy when reporting good sales news. The odd Xbox fanboy who finds this site creates an account and pulls the same crap. It is beyond pathetic and you better believe I'm going to let these idiots know it. So 'chill out?' Yeah, when other people stop being stupid I'll stop being an a-hole.
@At0micash
Well, I don't know what others think but I've never said Sony or MS are humble about anything. And certainly Sony can not, and has not, proven to ever play nice with the competition and I'm not just applying that to video games either. Sony is an extremely shady company although I do love the video game consoles it has produced. The same applies to MS, unlike everybody else though, Mr. Nice PR guy Phil Spencer, who I'm convinced some idiots have built a shrine for, hasn't convinced me that MS is some benevolent corporation looking out for the gamer. Now again, no where did I say Sony was either. So I'm just going to ask this one more time, though I'm not expecting an answer, if MS really cared about cross-platform gaming why has this never been brought to the forefront like it has now? I don't want to hear nonsense about 'Sony wouldn't play nice,' because duh, Sony never does, MS doesn't either but both companies have sure played the PR game very well at certain points this gen. This is PR points for everybody's favorite corporate windbag Mr. Spencer.
@Gamer83 If it makes you feel better, I don't really know who Phil Spencer is.
Anyway, since everyone seems to be all about the PR at the moment, I'm just gonna wait and see what comes out of this. Although I still am curious how they'd make it work if they actually did extend the olive branch.
@Gamer83 Dude, you are an complete and utter idiot. No offense...
@At0micash
Nobody acted like it was a bad thing. I did and still do question it from a business perspective. You have a different view point, I can respect that. The problem is that unfortunately you decided to create an account here and like all the trolls rant and rave how PlayStation fans suck and call this website is a cancer. It's too bad you couldn't have taken a different approach. Maybe we could've had a civil discussion.
@At0micash
Well, it's like I said, I don't think it really benefits either company. And I'm not behind the scenes so I have no idea how it works but the two services are different. I'm not sure it would be worth the hassle for publishers and developers to make this work. Maybe if Sony and MS actually are willing to work together things could go smoothly but I wouldn't count on that. The next time either of these companies do something nice with the gamer in mind will be the first.
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