Right now, there are just two games on PlayStation 4 that have full cross-platform support: Fortnite and Rocket League. Fortnite, of course, was the game that opened the gates to Sony’s walled garden. With it being as popular as it is, Sony couldn’t really ignore cross play for much longer, especially when it was shown to work just fine when it was toggled by accident.
When might you expect more of that to happen? I mean, it sure would be nice for those playing the recently launched Apex Legends to play with those on other platforms. Minecraft’s “Better Together” update is available on just about everything other than PlayStation 4, and it would lovely for more people to break blocks together.
According to PlayStation Studios boss Shawn Layden, the gates are wide open.
“People keep saying, “Why doesn’t Sony allow more people to have it?” We’re open for business on this one,” he told Game Informer in an extensive interview. “All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we’ve learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don’t believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they’re open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well.”
Layden says that Sony decided to allow Cross play, because they listen to their fans. You know, the ones who were begging for cross play for months.
“But I think we learned, from the feedback from our fans, that it was important. And it wasn’t just important to a vocal minority.”
According to Layden, setting up Cross-play was more complicated than just flipping a switch.
“When we did turn it on, light it up, we wanted to make sure we had thought out all the different ramifications of cross-play, cross-purchase, cross-progress, Those are all three very discreet aspects of what cross-play is, and there are decisions you make in provisioning those different pieces of it that if you make it quick and hasty, and the wrong decision, you can put yourself in a corner really fast, and that prevents scalability over time and the ability to bring people in in a secure and safe way.”
As for when or if Minecraft gets cross play? Layden doesn’t say, but given that it effectively runs through Xbox Live for cross play, I think the chances are slim. Hopefully other games do get it though. Right now? Mortal Kombat 11 cross-play is top of my wishlist.
Last Updated: February 12, 2019
konfab
February 12, 2019 at 14:53
I think they had this developed, but not enabled.
The only reason why they haven’t done it is because they were the dominant platform this generation. Now that we are in the sunset time of this gen, they need to keep people within the Playstation ecosystem for when the PS5 comes out.
Both their competitors have cross play, and that is a major benefit.
Jonah Cash
February 12, 2019 at 16:15
Still absolutely don’t understand cross play at all. Why would any company allow this? Oh wait Xbox was so far behind they had to find something to try and get under Sony’s skin.
Kasif
February 12, 2019 at 20:18
MS didn’t want to do cross play last gen when they were riding high. Now, they act like its always been their agenda. Super Panic mode.
cloudzn
February 13, 2019 at 08:10
Exactly now because Sony is leading this gen , they doing everything to be on the consumers side
Guz
February 12, 2019 at 17:15
So they did an 180 on their no cross play stance,
BradeLunner
February 13, 2019 at 11:24
They still need more backwards capability before they get my vote.
Pieter Kruger
February 13, 2019 at 08:10
“All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps”…….yeah, seems like the first of those steps are simply being told “NO!”.