Cross Platform Play: Needs Sony to Greenlight

Back in March of 2016, Microsoft extended the proverbial olive branch to Sony to attempt to bring the online experience into the future with cross platform support. If you're not sure what that is about, to put it simply, if this were to go ahead, you can play online with PS4, Xbox One and PC players. Sony had this to say at the time:

“PlayStation has been supporting cross-platform play between PC on several software titles starting with Final Fantasy 11 on PS2 and PC back in 2002. We would be happy to have the conversation with any publishers or developers who are interested in cross platform play”
The clear front runner in this situation is the creators behind the crazily successful game, Rocket League. Jeremy Dunham, the president at Psyonix has stated that they have everything in place to get it all working, but they need Sony to give the go ahead first.

“...and we can, in less than a business day, turn it on and have it up and working no problem. It’d literally take a few hours to propagate throughout the whole world, so really we’re just waiting on the permission to do so” - Jeremy Dunham (President of Psyonix)

It's easy to become annoyed at Sony for not moving faster on this one and essentially holding up this movement which could open a real movement for online gaming. However, I can't help but to think objectively and look at the situation from Sony's point of view.

Currently, without referring to statistics, it can be easily said that Sony are in front and have the larger share of the market when console gaming is concerned. Microsoft is on the back foot and attempting to create a new and exciting way for their customers to enjoy a gaming experience. From Sony's point of view, they don't have to try that hard because they're already there. They have succeeded where Microsoft have struggled.

The decision that Sony are faced with isn't as simple as whether or not they should go cross platform, but whether or not they should help Microsoft gain back some popularity. Unfortunately this decision comes as a double edged sword, whereas if they decide to greenlight this movement, they are effectively assisting Microsoft, their competition, to gain forward momentum in the market. On the other hand, there's a large gamer community that want this to go ahead and should Sony be the ones to hold it up, or knock it on the head, this could in fact have the same outcome as agreeing to it, by making gamers unhappy with Sony, and begin to side with Microsoft.

Although the above scenarios are extreme, they are very possibly outcomes of this movement. Although I would like to see this all go ahead, I can't help but at very least, understand Sony's actions to date. It's a big decision that needs to be made.
One quick thing before I finish up, currently you can play Rocket League against PC players on the PS4. However, you can't actually team up with PC/PS4 players mixed. It's a random thing that will put you into games with other players on other systems. If this new suggestion to add Xbox One in to the mix works the same, and it's all random and you can't actually team up with Xbox One/PS4/PC players, then I couldn't care less if it goes ahead or not. The current set up of playing against PS4/PC players is a mere illusion and makes absolutely no difference to anyone playing it.

Lucas
Aussie Gamers Express


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