The barrier between cross-platform play preventing Xbox and PlayStation players from connecting has always been an obstacle to the gaming community. Recently, Rocket League developer Psyonix has announced that it has the capability to link the two networks and enable the different consoles to play their game together.
In fact, they’ve said that functionality for cross-network play is complete, and could be rolled out for Rocket League in as little as “a few hours.” Unfortunately, they need to wait for Sony’s approval, which has yet to come.
Jeremy Dunham, vice president of Psyonix, spoke with IGN about the process.
“Right now, we’re literally at the point where all we need is the go-ahead on the Sony side and we can, in less than a business day, turn it on and have it up and working no problem. It’d literally take a few hours to propagate throughout the whole world, so really we’re just waiting on the permission to do so.”
This would be a major first step for the gaming industry towards a universal connectivity, or at close as it could get. But while Microsoft has already said they’re ready, Sony has yet to agree. Here’s what Dunham had to say on that issue:
“Sony’s such a big company that I’m sure it takes a while for them to figure out what it is that the roadblocks are, what sort of issues they might run into with other titles, any number of things that I can’t even begin to speculate on. We definitely ask them for updates often, and we’re still very confident that they’re eventually going to open those doors and welcome us in, but we also are really understanding that it’s going to take a while especially given all the ramifications of everything. It was just as much of a surprise to them as I think the rest of the world when Microsoft said that they would do it.”
Psyonix’s car-soccer game isn’t the only one interested in cross-platform play between the consoles. Last month, Overwatch developer Blizzard commented briefly on the possibility, in a reply to a fan’s tweet:
There is no cross platform play. We'll keep an eye on cross-platform possibilities on the consoles.
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) June 4, 2016
The statement of “no cross platform play” refers to a link between PC and consoles. On that subject, Blizzard said “We have no plans for that. Mixing mouse/keyboard and controller can have balance and competitive issues.”
Regardless, the future where Xbox Live and PSN players can actually play games together appears to be nearing, one game at a time.
