Speaking with Eurogamer at E3 2018, Matthew Prior (Creative Director for FIFA at EA Sports) talked about crossplay and how it would be a 'net benefit' for users, but there are issues with first parties to go through first.
It's something we've looked at, and it's something we often talk about. There are a lot of issues to work through. I'm trying to be diplomatic here! There are a lot of issues to work through with various first parties. But Fortnite does that now with PC to consoles. From a consumer standpoint, it makes the community that much broader, which makes it that much more compelling.
It's something we're aware of. I'm not making any promises. But you've seen that cross-platform play happening for the first time very recently. If you'd asked me that a few years ago I'd probably have said, 'it's not going to happen. We'll monitor and see.' I think it would be a net benefit to the users. One day!
When Prior says first parties, he really means Sony. In fact, we're well aware by now that Microsoft and Nintendo are fine with crossplay and have already enabled it for Fortnite (alongside PC, Mac and mobile devices) while Sony remains firmly opposed to the idea.
Hopefully, they will reconsider sooner than later as that would open a lot of opportunities for each and every multiplatform online game.
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.
