Microsoft Talking to Sony About Cross-Play

Published: August 24, 2017 12:08 AM /

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XBox One Dot Com

Gamescom is underway and Microsoft is currently knee-deep in news about the Xbox One X. Gamereactor had the chance to talk to Aaron Greenberg, the head of marketing at Xbox, where they asked him about cross-play with Sony. He confirmed that Microsoft was talking to Sony about it but didn't offer much in the way of details.

His full response to Gamereactor is here:

Absolutely, yeah. We're talking to Sony [about crossplay], we do partner with them on Minecraft and of course we would like to enable them to be part of that; one community, to unite gamers. So we're talking to them and we're hopeful that they'll be supportive of it.
What Greenberg told them doesn't saw a whole lot other than to let us know that cross-play is still on Microsoft's mind and they want to pursue it. Cross-play would allow players to join and play games with people across multiple systems. That means someone could be on Xbox One, someone else on PlayStation 4, and maybe someone else on Nintendo Switch all playing in the same game in the same match/server. That's the goal, anyway.

The quote mentions Minecraft, which is where Microsoft seems to be testing out cross-play and trying to convince other console companies to join them. The update with cross-play for Minecraft has been dubbed the Better Together Update, which would allow cross platform multiplayer for the Xbox One and PC versions of the game. Eventually, they plan to expand that to include iOS, Nintendo Switch, and VR.

Curiously, Greenberg mentions that Microsoft partners with Sony on Minecraft, but I'm not quite sure what that's referring to. As of right now, according to the Better Together FAQ page the PlayStation 4 is not on the list of platforms cross-play will be coming to. It is likely referring to the fact that Minecraft is on the PlayStation 4, and they want to bring it into the Better Together update.

Now we'll just have to wait and see what comes of the talks between Microsoft and Sony for more news.

What games would you like to see get cross-platform support? Would you like to see it happen at all? Let us know in the comments below!

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Andrew Otton
| Editor in Chief

Andrew is the Editor in Chief at TechRaptor. Conned into a love of gaming by Nintendo at a young age, Andrew has been chasing the dragon spawned by Super… More about Andrew

More Info About This Game
Learn more about Minecraft: Dungeons
Developer
Mojang
Publisher
Microsoft
Platforms
PC