Last year, Microsoft opened the gates of crossplay with a letter posted by Chris Charla (Director of ID@Xbox) on the Xbox website. Here's the most relevant excerpt:
Cross-Network Play
First, in addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. We’re thrilled to confirm that Psyonix’s Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well.
At the time, I wrote an op-ed expressing the hope that gamers could be unified into a huge, happy community via crossplay. Unfortunately, in over a year there haven't been any examples of crossplay between different consoles such as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Many have reportedly tried and failed: Psyonix with Rocket League, CD Projekt RED with GWENT and most recently Bandai Namco with Tekken 7.
If you're still hopeful that things may change soon, regrettably this seems highly unlikely. In our recent interview about Crossout, Gaijin CEO Anton Yudintsev was crystal-clear:
Crossout will not support cross-platform functionality. War Thunder unites PC and PS4, while Crossout will be available on Xbox One as well, and cross-platform between two different consoles is not possible.
There you have it. While PC/PlayStation 4 and PC/Xbox One examples are plentiful, PlayStation gamers and Xbox One gamers won't be able to battle it out in the foreseeable future as crossplay between two different consoles is just not possible.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
