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Microsoft ready to talk to devs who want crossplay

Nanashrew

Banned
This game will forever be the wrench in the spokes of conversation for a couple reasons:

It's already on PS/PC, right? Yoshida wants all platforms to be crossplatform play.

Well, that's all well and good except for the part where Sony never really intended on having any crossplay with Xbox, ever. All of their talk about crossplay is what pushed third party developers to come at MS about it and they changed their mindset, but this particular game since it was crossplay with Sony first, it'll never be crossplay with Xbox as long as Sony holds that stance.

So that is two requirements that Yoshida wants, but at the moment only one of them MS could realistically make happen on their own. If Sony doesn't budge, the game won't get made on Xbox.

Same with Switch. Back in 2014 when it was still called the NX, they said they were open to the NX as long as it has crossplay. Nintendo's been okay with crossplay since Wii U. And we're seeing crossplay games on Switch coming really soon. Every time they talk about this stuff it gets annoying because it's obviously not going to happen because of Sony's stance.
 

Literally every other game that supports or wants to support crossplay between Xbox and other consoles. Rocket League being the main one at the moment. The only reason Minecraft requires a Live login (which isn't quite what it sounds) is because the game is published by Microsoft.
 

watdaeff4

Member
Same with Switch. Back in 2014 when it was still called the NX, they said they were open to the NX as long as it has crossplay. Nintendo's been okay with crossplay since Wii U. And we're seeing crossplay games on Switch coming really soon. Every time they talk about this stuff it gets annoying because it's obviously not going to happen because of Sony's stance.

Yeah, I don't think Yoshida is providing the full story
 

bitbydeath

Gold Member
Solid work

image.php
 

ResoRai

Member
The Minecraft Better Together update does support cross-platform friends lists, so that's already here. (No voice chat however.)
I was going to mention that. And that's across Xbox, Switch, Android, IOS. We have to start somewhere and Minecraft in particular is very promising. Rocket League is pretty basic, but this stuff can be improved. Especially if it starts to become a biger focus when developing games.
 

Head.spawn

Junior Member
Same with Switch. Back in 2014 when it was still called the NX, they said they were open to the NX as long as it has crossplay. Nintendo's been okay with crossplay since Wii U. And we're seeing crossplay games on Switch coming really soon. Every time they talk about this stuff it gets annoying because it's obviously not going to happen because of Sony's stance.

Precisely and people like to keep trotting this game out as the poster boy of why crossplay between consoles isn't happening.

Yoshidas reasoning for not making it happen could've been as simple as, "I want a Big Mac and a Small Fry sometime today and then and only then can we make this game!" and MS and Nintendo could do that and supersize it but the game still wouldn't happen because crossplay is being actively blocked by Sony.

I'm glad Yoshida was finally up front about what his main gripe with MS is though, patch certification could definitely screw up launch timing amongst different platforms, so it's a very valid point.
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
Here's the thing though, crossplay at the moment is just random match making slots filled by random people . That's a completely different ballgame (both politically and in engineering terms) from cross-platformn friends, parties, etc. Would be dead nice though!

Minecraft has cross platform friends.

does street fighter let ps4 players invite pc players?

Of course they are - they're losing.

It would be insane for Sony to do the same. It's simply not going to happen.
supposing this is correct. MS and Sony are both acting in their best interests, so all that matters to us is what's in our best interests.
 

Upinsmoke

Member
I think it's disgusting how Sony are in San Mateo, everyone else is just a block or two fron one another. You know they can hook up for coffee, reminisce about the old times. Meanwhile it's pretty obvious Sony just don't wanna play ball, this could really ruin them if they aren't careful, gamers really care about internal relations between developers and publishers and what Sony are doing isolating themselves like that really damages them, it's anti consumer too.
 

nynt9

Member
Minecraft has cross platform friends.

does street fighter let ps4 players invite pc players?

supposing this is correct. MS and Sony are both acting in their best interests, so all that matters to us is what's in our best interests.

Microsoft having cross platform friends is because they make everyone sign up for XBL though, right? SFV on PS4 and PC are on different infrastructures.
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
Microsoft having cross platform friends is because they make everyone sign up for XBL though, right? SFV on PS4 and PC are on different infrastructures.

this was rhetorical. ps4 players can invite pc players in street fighter using capcom id.

this "problem" already has solutions, will only get better, and the idea that cross platform play is limited only to randoms is straight up lying.
 

samar11

Member
I think it's disgusting how Sony are in San Mateo, everyone else is just a block or two fron one another. You know they can hook up for coffee, reminisce about the old times. Meanwhile it's pretty obvious Sony just don't wanna play ball, this could really ruin them if they aren't careful, gamers really care about internal relations between developers and publishers and what Sony are doing isolating themselves like that really damages them, it's anti consumer too.

Yeh we heard that before and they are having pretty good numbers...outside of gaf no one cares
 

Head.spawn

Junior Member
Microsoft having cross platform friends is because they make everyone sign up for XBL though, right? SFV on PS4 and PC are on different infrastructures.

It's not just crossplatform friends, they also use it to solve crossplatform DLC purchases, it's used for friends list and invites of course but it is also used so that you can access your game worlds on any platform (Xbox One to Switch for instance), you don't need XBLG on other platforms, literally just the sign-in and Gamertag as an account to manage all of these things. Lastly they are required to access servers so that you have a consistent experience no matter what platform you're on.
 

Kayant

Member
this was rhetorical. ps4 players can invite pc players in street fighter using capcom id.

this "problem" already has solutions,will only get better, and the idea that cross platform play is limited only to randoms is straight up lying.
It doesn't completely because as justsomeguy mentioned it's indeed a different ball game (communication/in game party) has it's seen as a different issue by platform holders. There is also the cost of implementation and maintenance of servers/accounts etc. This is going be the ultimate barrier for most Devs expect the giants that already have things like accounts systems in place.

Also it's closer to the reality of things because with more than two platforms involved cross play has been just bigger player pools and likely will be in majority of cases due to investment. Yes Minecraft changes things but again infrastructure is already in place for them, indie Devs to mid size or even large ones aren't going to be as incentivised or willing to build/manage such infrastructure if it isn't in place already for those purposes as outside bigger player pools from cross play. The benefits to them than their customers is much less.
 
So I can continue to dream of buying an Xbox Playanywhere game, which is also cross play between Steam and W10?

Would love to be able to buy the next Overwatch, Battlefield, NBA 2K etc. just the one time and switch between console and PC without having to worry about the relatively tiny player base on Windows Store.
 
They wouldn't be singing this tune if they were market leaders. Sorry not genuine at all


Different times and different people in charge compared to previous MS execs.

I mean did you see the article this morning about Amazon and MS's new partnership around Alexa and Cortana.

I do love to see how some people spin this though and they aint even getting paid to do it! lol
 
Also I hate to break it to the people championing crossplay as some kind of feature that would define a generation or somehow ruin an entertainment division but it's really quite minimal, people in the grand scheme of things just do not care, as opposed to actually having games to play on there console of choice, that's what people care about most.

I think Sony should allow cross play between Xbox/Nintendo and PlayStation where it makes sense. For indie titles such as Ark or Rocket League, it absolutely makes sense. For AAA titles the water is muddier, especially when you consider that many AAA games have exclusive marketing and content deals with Xbox or PlayStation. I don't think it makes sense there as the individual play bases for those games is going to be huge any way.

Having said that, GAF being the echo chamber that it is, this feature isn't as big a deal to the wider market as the past few months on these boards would lead you to believe. It's a fantastic feature, but outside of enthusiasts, I sincerely doubt that your average consumer is up in arms about this, or ultimately, even cares.

One thing I genuinely want to ask though, for all of the people saying that Sony wouldn't lose money, why is that? And what leads some of you to believe that they'll make more money if they allowed this? Legit question that I want to hear answers to.
 
I think Sony should allow cross play between Xbox/Nintendo and PlayStation where it makes sense. For indie titles such as Ark or Rocket League, it absolutely makes sense. For AAA titles the water is muddier, especially when you consider that many AAA games have exclusive marketing and content deals with Xbox or PlayStation. I don't think it makes sense there as the individual play bases for those games is going to be huge any way.

Having said that, GAF being the echo chamber that it is, this feature isn't as big a deal to the wider market as the past few months on these boards would lead you to believe. It's a fantastic feature, but outside of enthusiasts, I sincerely doubt that your average consumer is up in arms about this, or ultimately, even cares.

One thing I genuinely want to ask though, for all of the people saying that Sony wouldn't lose money, why is that? And what leads some of you to believe that they'll make more money if they allowed this? Legit question that I want to hear answers to.

I think the average consumer will take more notice once cross play for bigger games like Minecraft hits the market and people can see how well it does or doesn't work for themselves.

As far as benefits to Sony, the obvious one would be that in a world where third party games all have cross play it removes the "My friends play on Xbox, so I'll buy an Xbox" reasoning. It comes down to console exclusives and that's where Sony has the advantage.
 

Raide

Member
Sure MS get more out of a crossplay deal but the more people push the idea of crossplay as something that should be a normal part of gaming, the harder it becomes for people to ignore/block it. It just needs big titles to start supporting it and it will go from there.
 
I don't think the platform holder gains or loses much from this, whoever it may be. It's just a really cool bullet point feature primarily for the benefit of the consumer. Sony might have double the install base at the moment but it's not like Xbox game lobby's are in desperate need of player counts.
 

Widge

Member
I'd be interested in hearing what Valve have to say on this because they are in the same sort of position as Sony.
 

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
I think the average consumer will take more notice once cross play for bigger games like Minecraft hits the market and people can see how well it does or doesn't work for themselves.

As far as benefits to Sony, the obvious one would be that in a world where third party games all have cross play it removes the "My friends play on Xbox, so I'll buy an Xbox" reasoning. It comes down to console exclusives and that's where Sony has the advantage.
I doubt it would have that deep of intergration. Friends etc...on different networks probably won't be able to talk together or group together. Probably just a bigger pool of random players.
 

Synth

Member
It doesn't completely because as justsomeguy mentioned it's indeed a different ball game (communication/in game party) has it's seen as a different issue by platform holders. There is also the cost of implementation and maintenance of servers/accounts etc. This is going be the ultimate barrier for most Devs expect the giants that already have things like accounts systems in place.

Also it's closer to the reality of things because with more than two platforms involved cross play has been just bigger player pools and likely will be in majority of cases due to investment. Yes Minecraft changes things but again infrastructure is already in place for them, indie Devs to mid size or even large ones aren't going to be as incentivised or willing to build/manage such infrastructure if it isn't in place already for those purposes as outside bigger player pools from cross play. The benefits to them than their customers is much less.

It's definitely not as simple as just communicating and matchmaking with users in the same ecosystem, but that doesn't make "it's limited to randoms" any less false. That would be true for specific game's implementation of crossplay, but not crossplay in general as a concept. Even some of the most limited crossplay games in regards to options like Rocket League, will still let you create a private game and invite friends directly to it.

There's a lot of work to be done to make crossplay as seamless comprable apps in other spaces (Facebook, WhatsApp, Spotify, etc) but it would happen if progress wasn't being restricted at the first step of actually being allowed to implement a global solution.

I doubt it would have that deep of intergration. Friends etc...on different networks probably won't be able to talk together or group together. Probably just a bigger pool of random players.

If crossplay was just a standard expectation, it's very likely we'd see a unifying service that handled communications amongst groups on different platforms. Look at Twitch... it's not part of XBL or PSN, and yet you can stream directly to it via hooks in the OS itself on both platforms (and obviously PC). There's little reason for a service like Discord to not be able to do something similar regarding group chats and parties, but as of today they simply wouldn't be allowed to, so what's the point in trying?
 

martino

Member
Destiny please!

Nintendo is in the middle lol! Reminds me of Layden's comments...



Sony needs to get Sumo and VV on CTR ASAP cross-play with Switch!

exclusive content (if it still has strikes/maps in weekly rotation) mean it won't happen soon
 

So, er, the funny thing about this is this article is a slice of a quote from a larger interview, and here's how the exchange about cross-play came about from the interviewer side (my side!):

"Is this a position that's changed over the course of the Xbox One's life cycle? I ask this as I remember the Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida specifically telling me in an interview that game didn't come to Xbox because of differences there that couldn't be reconciled at the time, when that game was new."

To this Ybarra says he doesn't know about that specific situation, but it's from this he then launches into his explanation that Nintendo and Valve are close by and they're willing to talk to anyone. He also says something along the lines of - consumer demand has changed, and the MS stance changes with that. My editor over there has been putting up these one-shot articles of parts of the interview over the past few days, but the full transcript of me and Mike chatting should be going online as a long-form read either tomorrow or Friday. :) Though don't expect any more FF14 talk - that was it.
 

EGOMON

Member
I feel like MS can't believe they actually found a bad PR on Sony and are capitalising on it desperately trying to remind us every other week "Hey we are cool, Sony are the bad guys blocking everyone from fully experience this amazing feature"
 

Synth

Member
exclusive content (if it still has strikes/maps in weekly rotation) mean it won't happen soon

Didn't Destiny 1 not have the exclusive stuff in rotation regardless, as the daily and weeklies were the same across all platforms?

Exclusive content doesn't really have to impact crossplay. For example Nintendo won't have Halo content on Minecraft, and Xbox won't have the Mario skins. Same deal with Rocket League and exclusive vehicles.

In Destiny it becomes slightly more complicated only because of exclusive weapons. In PvE this wouldn't mean much, because it'd simply be a case of other platforms seeing the weapons used, but it never dropping for them. PvP is a different matter though, if the weapons provide an actual advantage over the options available to everyone else.

So crossplay PvE in Destiny should be fine, but crossplay PvP would probably be a bad idea, which isn't really unprecedented as that setup is often how crossplay is dealt with in games where PC players would have a mouse + keyboard advantage.
 

Keinning

Member
I feel like MS can't believe they actually found a bad PR on Sony and are capitalising on it desperately trying to remind us every other week "Hey we are cool, Sony are the bad guys blocking everyone from fully experience this amazing feature"

Yes, microsoft is forcing all those media outlets to ask them about it and gamers to care about crossplay

I give up. Gaf oficially lost all mental sanity and this thread is the proof.
 

martino

Member
Didn't Destiny 1 not have the exclusive stuff in rotation regardless, as the daily and weeklies were the same across all platforms?

Exclusive content doesn't really have to impact crossplay. For example Nintendo won't have Halo content on Minecraft, and Xbox won't have the Mario skins. Same deal with Rocket League and exclusive vehicles.

In Destiny it becomes slightly more complicated only because of exclusive weapons. In PvE this wouldn't mean much, because it'd simply be a case of other platforms seeing the weapons used, but it never dropping for them. PvP is a different matter though, if the weapons provide an actual advantage over the options available to everyone else.

So crossplay PvE in Destiny should be fine, but crossplay PvP would probably be a bad idea, which isn't really unprecedented as that setup is often how crossplay is dealt with in games where PC players would have a mouse + keyboard advantage.

the way i experienced it (i could have missed something) exclusive strike are only playable in rotation (someone more knowledgeable to confirm ?)
 

EGOMON

Member
Yes, microsoft is forcing all those media outlets to ask them about it and gamers to care about crossplay

I give up. Gaf oficially lost all mental sanity and this thread is the proof.
I am driving now can't link but am pretty sure the last 3 times I read about this topic was mentioned by MS personnel
 

Synth

Member
the way i experienced it (i could have missed something) exclusive strike are only playable in rotation (someone more knowledgeable to confirm ?)

You may be correct (I never actually played on PS4, so never had the content). Was it a case of there would be the same weekly as Xbox, and then the exclusive strike on top of that? If so, then it still wouldn't really complicate things.
 

Hyun Sai

Member
the way i experienced it (i could have missed something) exclusive strike are only playable in rotation (someone more knowledgeable to confirm ?)

When I played Destiny (year one), exclusive strikes were not part of the weekly / nightfall rotation, and exclusive weapons couldn't be sold by Xur.

Perhaps they changed that, I dunno.
 

Keinning

Member
I am driving now can't link but am pretty sure the last 3 times I read about this topic was mentioned by MS personnel

Yes, it was mentioned by MS personnel
In interviews done by other people
Where the same people asked about crossplay or Minecraft

Guess microsoft is forcing rocket league and ark devs to talk about it all the time too
 
Yes, it was mentioned by MS personnel
In interviews done by other people
Where the same people asked about crossplay or Minecraft

Guess microsoft is forcing rocket league and ark devs to talk about it all the time too

Considering the state of ark's optimization and no crossplay between pc and xbox, i really can't think of what makes ps4 xb1 crossplay a priority for them all of a sudden.
Maybe they just realized how cool it is at the exact same time as ms.

Or maybe..... just maybe.. ms is pushing the devs for cross play, which would make sense given their recent emphasis on it, who in turn are pushing sony to allow it.
 

Deku Tree

Member
I doubt MS would want cross play if they were in Sony’s position globally. And I bet Sony would want cross play if they were in MS spot.
 

Jumeira

Banned
what about glorious leader sony?

They can join in, or be left behind. This is where the industry is heading and Sony can fight it as much as they want but it seems all the big players are pushing for this.

Sony have this gen, no one knows about the coming gen but once users get used to this it's going to be an obvious limitation on Sony's behalf which will not sit well with gamers moving forward.
 

Keinning

Member
Considering the state of ark's optimization and no crossplay between pc and xbox, i really can't think of what makes ps4 xb1 crossplay a priority for them all of a sudden.
Maybe they just realized how cool it is at the exact same time as ms.

Or maybe..... just maybe.. ms is pushing the devs for cross play, which would make sense given their recent emphasis on it, who in turn are pushing sony to allow it.

maybe
just maybe
devs would feel more compelled to do what sony wants, as market leader, than what microsoft wants

specially devs like psyonix which had closer relations with sony to begin with.

maybe they want crossplay just because crossplay is a good thing for gamers and for their games instead of being a microsoft conspiracy to make sony looks bad
but just maybe
 
This really is a game changing for me.

The more 3rd party games that support crossplatform the more inclined I am to switch from PS4 to Xbox.
 
The thread title is inaccurate. Should be "MS is willing to talk to platform-holders (i.e. Valve and Nintendo) on behalf of devs who want to do Crossplay"

Also, since not all Windows 10 games are cross-play with Xbox, maybe MS also needs to be ready to talk to themselves.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Let's be honest here. MS are the ones who benefits the most from this out of all the platform holders here.

Exactly why it's just good PR for them. MS should just keep pushing this narrative until everyone starts to blame Valve, Nintendo, and Sony for every game not being complete 100% crossplay. It's a winning talking point for them.
 
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