Xbox One and PS4 Cross-Platform Play? Maybe, Just Maybe

  Well, damn. This one could be either ball-bustingly awesome or shrivel away into nothingness, like a sad little raisin of failure and lost potential (my money’s on the raisin thing, sadly).  

Gaming has a long history of rivalry. Remember back in the days when you’d bully the hell out of the ‘Mario kid’ at recess, the one who hadn’t seen the light; the super-nineties-cool light and ‘tude of Sonic the Hedgehog? Maybe you and your buddies were more pro-Mario. It doesn’t matter. That’s the thing about console wars, it’s all ultimately meaningless and pretty freaking dumb.

These days, the bitching is betwixt PS4/Xbox One players, over which is the better system. The wars are alive and well in the YouTube comment section. I’ve no clue why. Can’t we all just be friends? Martin Luther King had a dream, remember, where Microsoft and Sony owners could get their game on together, peaceably, without being assholes to each other.

At the Game Developer’s Conference, Xbox bossman Chris Charla gave that dream just the kick in the butt it needed. Maybe.

"In addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks... Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. We’re thrilled to confirm that Psyonix’s Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well."

Other networks. Cross-platform play, ladies and gentlemen. This depends, natch, on other companies supporting this sort of stuff, but damn if there’s not some potential here.

For more Xbox talk from the show, hit Techfly.