At E3 last week, it was announced that titles Rocket League and Minecraft will be cross play compatible amongst Switch, Xbox One and PC players which surprised many. However, Xbox head Phil Spencer has shown interest in extended the cross play compatibility with Sony in which they declined.
According to PlayStation exec Jim Ryan, PlayStation’s main reason for showing disinterest is that they’re worried for their players’ safety in the prospect that they wouldn’t control be able to fully control the connectivity between PSN (PlayStation Now) and Xbox Live.
During an E3 livestream last week, Spencer responded to Ryan’s comments: “I would love for players on all platforms to stay connected.”
“The fact that somebody would make an assertion that somehow we’re not keeping Minecraft players safe … I found, not only from a Microsoft perspective but an industry perspective, I don’t know why that has to become the dialogue. That doesn’t seem healthy for anyone. We can always do better with anything we do. I find the whole discussion around safety with our game and that somehow we wouldn’t take that as a top priority … and frankly, through our parental controls on Xbox Live and everything else that we’ve done, shown that that’s incredible important to us as a platform.”
Nintendo US’s Corporate Comms Director Charlie Scibetta this week responded to the publisher’s involvement in this cross play project with Microsoft stated that they agreed to it in the best interest of the players.
“We’re trying to be more flexible as a company. We’re reaching out to try and get people to interact with our IP. In this case Rocket League is [developer Psyonix’s] IP on our system, but we’re trying to get people involved with us in any way we can.”
Considering the variety of titles that will be coming to both platforms over the next few months and with Xbox gaining a strong interest with the players in the backward compatibility system, introducing a cross play system in which players can enjoy their favourite titles is how Nintendo and Microsoft are unifying gaming irrespective of what platform/system one subscribes to.
At the end of the day, its all about the love and passion for gaming and we’re slowing starting to see this vision come true.
