Microsoft Invites Valve, Nintendo, and Others to Join Xbox One and PC Crossplay

Megalith

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Microsoft is ready to have a “conversation” with any development team that wants to feature crossplay support on consoles and PC: the company is happy to talk to the likes of Valve and Nintendo when it comes to getting multiplayer games working across multiple platforms, not just between Xbox One and Windows. Naturally, Sony has failed to garner a mention, which is not surprising, being that the company has already demonstrated their distaste for crossplay.

“It’s more about gamer choice, more about making an IP on our platform last longer. I don’t care about where they play, I just want people to have fun playing games because that’s just better for the industry,” said Ybarra. “The demands of consumers and developers have changed,” he continued. “People are like, ‘we want all of our gamers in one multiplayer pool together, playing.’” “We totally agree with that. If any developer wants to have that conversation… Valve is right down the street from us, Nintendo is too – they’re like a block from us. We’re having these discussions as developers come up, and we’re completely open to that.”
 
Hopefully this can become more common in the future. Street Fighter 5 and Killer Instinct both have cross play with PC's and they honestly work great.
If MS and Sony can't make it happen, I do hope PC cross-play becomes more common.
 
They already announced at E3 Xbox/PC/Switch/Mobile cross play for minecraft, so I guess more of that...

good for gamers, smart move for microsoft. Good PR
 
Valve? Why would they invite a store? They should instead invite studios that actually make games.

Hehe, joke aside, Valve is in a semi-unique position in the PC world, to help push additional gaming technologies. Just because many of their previous attempts didn't fully take off doesn't mean they can't still help push this type of thing forward. Adding something to the Steam Overlay to help connect to XBox players for example, or helping developers who leverage Valve's tools to implement cross play maybe. Maybe they don't really develop games anymore, but they do sit on some great IP that could be helpful. (Game engines, netcode, binary distribution, large player-base, etc.) You know, if MS stopped pushing the MS Store as the sole method to acquire their content for PCs, and really worked a two-way deal with Valve (MS licensed games on Steam for example, with cross play back from Steam to XBox) that would really go a long way toward restoring a lot of people's opinions of them. I'd actually buy several MS products if I could get them through Steam. I'm totally jumping the gun on the latter portion of this post of course. :D
 
If Sony doesn't do this because they have the biggest e-peen this generation, long term I think it will be a mistake for them.

But how will this work? Everytime i play battlefield i see at lest 5 'N-words' and a few dozen 4 letter vulgarities of other types in peoples nicknames. Last i checked, Xbox Live was much much much stricter on this sort of thing. Sony doesn't seem to care.

How are you going to report someone on the PSN?
 
But how will this work? Everytime i play battlefield i see at lest 5 'N-words' and a few dozen 4 letter vulgarities of other types in peoples nicknames. Last i checked, Xbox Live was much much much stricter on this sort of thing. Sony doesn't seem to care.

How are you going to report someone on the PSN?

Hadn't really thought about that. I suppose that sort of thing would be in those "conversations" they mentioned. Good point. I have to say, that I really don't play a lot of competitive types of games where people would want to be able to report others for misconduct. I play either single player, or co-op, and generally you're not going to report your friends that joined just to play some co-op with you. :D
 
But how will this work? Everytime i play battlefield i see at lest 5 'N-words' and a few dozen 4 letter vulgarities of other types in peoples nicknames. Last i checked, Xbox Live was much much much stricter on this sort of thing. Sony doesn't seem to care.

How are you going to report someone on the PSN?
Sort of like an IP address, i'm pretty sure there would be a unique identifier to place who you are and platform you are on. That is why they are inviting everyone to the table to discuss it so they can start working on the implementation. Sony obviously refuses to do so.
 
This push for crossplay by MS is a desperate attempt to keep their hardware console relevant. Its a huge problem when the latest AAA game simply doesnt have enough players to make for a good multiplayer experience, and MS is trying to bolster their matchmaking on the backs of other platforms. Simple as that.
 
Everyone is saying Sony but I highly doubt Nintendo would do this. They've always done their own thing. They would certainly need to fix their situation. Right now you need to use your phone just to talk to players online when playing Switch.
 
Valve? Why would they invite a store? They should instead invite studios that actually make games.

While I get what you are saying and agree, inviting Valve is actually a smart move. How many games use the Steam Cloud or Steam DRM? If they added Steam Crossplay (or whatever they call it) as a standard API that developers could hook for that feature, I think it would get a lot more usage than just leaving it up to individual studios.
 
But how will this work? Everytime i play battlefield i see at lest 5 'N-words' and a few dozen 4 letter vulgarities of other types in peoples nicknames. Last i checked, Xbox Live was much much much stricter on this sort of thing. Sony doesn't seem to care.

How are you going to report someone on the PSN?

On Xbox Live you won't read those things - instead you'll hear them spoken loudly in a wide variety of accents and dialects :p
 
This push for crossplay by MS is a desperate attempt to keep their hardware console relevant. Its a huge problem when the latest AAA game simply doesnt have enough players to make for a good multiplayer experience, and MS is trying to bolster their matchmaking on the backs of other platforms. Simple as that.

Which, despite this being totally true, and me agreeing with you, is actually the correct course of action, and would make more people happy than just MS or their fanbase.
 
Everyone is saying Sony but I highly doubt Nintendo would do this. They've always done their own thing. They would certainly need to fix their situation. Right now you need to use your phone just to talk to players online when playing Switch.

Nintendo won't play along either. They do their own thing and ignore what everyone else does.

Nintendo is already on board with cross platform multiplayer support. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-exec-explains-why-switch-cross-play-with-/1100-6451097/
Sony is really the last major holdout. But why should that be a surprise? This is the same company that told us that people would get a second job to afford the PS3, and that gamers don't actually want to play online together.
 
Everyone is saying Sony but I highly doubt Nintendo would do this. They've always done their own thing. They would certainly need to fix their situation. Right now you need to use your phone just to talk to players online when playing Switch.

Thanks for saying that I was surprised nobody mentioned it yet. Nintendo has less than a zero percent chance of doing something like this. They've always gone their own way, no matter what the market or other companies are doing. Hell they still struggle to understand what the internet is for.

Don't get me wrong I still love them, they're just different, and they have blinders on to everything around them.
 
Everyone is saying Sony but I highly doubt Nintendo would do this. They've always done their own thing. They would certainly need to fix their situation. Right now you need to use your phone just to talk to players online when playing Switch.


haha, ya, Nintendo can barely get playing across one console to work. Their online presence is so bad it's actually quaint. The store on the Switch is laughable.
 
translation.

not enough xboned players.

:ROFLMAO:

PoS4 owner and PC gamer. Translation: Been asking for this for YEARS!

If I have a multiplayer title on the PC and the same title is available on another platform, why shouldn't cross platform play be an option? Especially given that these titles only barrier is the one created by the platform and NOT the designers? We keep hearing of publishers screwing around with cross-play in-house...so WTF?!

It's about time publishers use their influence to mandate open communication their MP titles for the purposes of connecting their base of players in a platform neutral context.
 
I've wanted cross-play for YEARS! Glad MS is doing this and hopefully almost every game possible becomes cross-play! Only good will come from it for all!
 
Controller vs mouse/keyboard. Get ready for the screaming console kids on your sessions about being a "hack".
 
Sweet, the ability to play PC games with a super toxic community. Exactly what I want.

There's a reason I don't play multiplayer games on my PS4 Pro or Xbox One S. It's garbage.
 
Valve? Why would they invite a store? They should instead invite studios that actually make games.

Valve has a store. Steam is the store. Steam has an api.

If Valve integrates MS crossplay features into their api, it makes it that much easier for developers to integrate crossplay into their program. Heck it'd be easy for Vavle to add in friend support: open up steam and see friends from X-box, switch, and pc - this would apply to those consoles too, they'd see friends in valve and the other console. That alone would be powerful.
 
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We've been gaming on multi platorms with the same IP for 20+ years now. To be honest, It's pretty shocking it's mid to late 2017 and this still hasn't been a thing.
 
2001-2016: "LOL, PC gaming. Xbox Xbox Xbox"
2017: "We're ready to have a conversation"

Only took 15 years, losing the console war to Sony, and a failed windows store for Microsoft to suddenly care.

Unfortunately, Valve/Sony/Nintendo have nothing to gain by giving Microsoft a handout, upside in ent, as all it would do is validate MS's failing platforms. And if Microsoft was in Valve or Sony's position, they would be laughing off the idea of any crossplay ..
 
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Everyone is saying Sony but I highly doubt Nintendo would do this. They've always done their own thing. They would certainly need to fix their situation. Right now you need to use your phone just to talk to players online when playing Switch.

Nintendo is already on board. Sony is the only holdout.
 
We've all heard the rumors that Sony is tough to work with as far as the PSN goes. That said, they have had cross-play with PC for a number of titles already.

This could be a case where MS is grandstanding to draw a lot of attention, but playing hardball with Sony behind the scenes. MS gets to look like the good guys, but all the while they could only be offering Sony a deal that they cannot accept.
 
Last I checked even CoD wasn't coming to Switch.

Is that a bad thing?

I'd love to see a much higher volume of games on the Switch, but Acti-Ubi-Shovelware isn't what I'd want. Of course, without games like that, there's not much need to even have cross play on the Switch I guess. Still having the ability available for devs that want it is better than not having it.
 
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