Home Gaming Sony defends lack of Xbox and Switch cross-network play in Minecraft and Rocket League

Sony defends lack of Xbox and Switch cross-network play in Minecraft and Rocket League

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You may have seen yesterday that Rocket League, the unfathomably popular vehicular football game is coming to Nintendo’s hybrid handheld wondermachine, the Switch. That means you’ll be able to play the game both offline and on, wherever you like. What makes it more interesting is that it features full cross-network play – and you can score goals against players on both PC and Xbox One.

The astute among you would have noticed that PlayStation is excluded from that. Yes, just as with Minecraft and its new cross-play functionality, Sony’s platforms are wholly absent. It’s becoming exceedingly obvious that Sony prefers for its networks to remain gated. But why? In a chat with Eurogamer, Sony’s Jim Ryan reasoned that it was to protect the children. Okay then.

“We’ve got to be mindful of our responsibility to our install base. Minecraft – the demographic playing that, you know as well as I do, it’s all ages but it’s also very young. We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe. Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it’s something we have to think about very carefully.”

That’s an odd stance to take when Nintendo – arguably the most child-safe platform of them all – is jumping on the cross-play bandwagon.

Could it ever happen? Maybe.

“We’re always open to conversations with any developer or publisher who wants to talk about it,” Ryan says – noting however that there are no discussions about it at the moment.

I suspect that a lot of this comes from a security standpoint, and not wanting to open their network wide enough to have a repeat of the great hack that brought the PlayStation Network down for months and resulted in millions of customer details being leaked. Whatever the cause, it’s ultimately not consumer friendly, and if it becomes a trend, people may start opting for cross-platform versions of games that play nicely with other systems.

Last Updated: June 14, 2017

18 Comments

  1. Gavin Mannion

    June 14, 2017 at 08:42

    What I’m confused about is that if I play Rocket League on my PS4 I can cross play with PC people.

    So if they are allowing that then why aren’t they allowing the Switch and Xbone in? I think it’s more about Sony trying to squash their competitors than anything else

    Reply

    • Guild

      June 14, 2017 at 09:06

      I like the PS and the games that come with it but this excuse is bullshit. There a number of ways they can re-address their T&C’s and the responsibility/excuse ultimately lies with parents who give children access.
      Maybe Sony know their network is not up to scratch and don’t want to be exposed for their incompetence so use a bullshit excuse to cover it.

      Reply

    • Ottokie

      June 14, 2017 at 09:56

      Good point

      Reply

    • Jim of the Banana

      June 14, 2017 at 14:01

      Because boney x players and switch gamers have cooties. Also, you don’t mix with the dirty orphans from across the train track. It’s well known…. they have lice and carry diseases.

      Reply

  2. Pieter Kruger

    June 14, 2017 at 09:16

    He basically went on to say that it’s due to the interests of other stakeholders & financial reasons!? Sony, dead is “for the players”, it’s now “for the stakeholders”!???

    Reply

  3. Pieter Kruger

    June 14, 2017 at 09:47

    SONY Protecting you from: True 4K gaming/EA Acces/Free Backwards Compatibility/Stable online infrastructure and now also Cross play!

    Reply

    • Magoo

      June 14, 2017 at 14:04

      ^The same guy who yesterday shunned negativity and criticism in the comment section.

      Reply

      • Jim of the Banana

        June 14, 2017 at 14:23

        Hehehehehe!

        Reply

  4. Ottokie

    June 14, 2017 at 09:51

    What they say about kids playing Minecraft online is pretty true. The online MC community can be just as toxic as the LoL and Dota community.

    Rocket league also has the usual “ez” muppets, but that’s not really hurtful as much as being immature.

    Reply

    • HvR

      June 14, 2017 at 09:56

      Yes but it is true on the Minecraft Online Community on Playstation as well; unfortunately Sony’s magic T&C does not work in stopping people from being assholes and trolls

      Reply

    • Pieter Kruger

      June 14, 2017 at 09:59

      Yeah but they’re not blocking Minecraft or online play as a whole, just Cross play which has absolutely nothing to do with…….wait for it…….”Protecting kids!”

      Reply

      • Jim of the Banana

        June 14, 2017 at 14:23

        Have you been on xbox live chat recently? Holy mother of Gamitor…. Those diseased mutants lack decorum and public decency. Thank you Sony, for protecting us from the xbox untermensch.

        Reply

  5. CodeDisQus

    June 14, 2017 at 10:24

    As a single player mainly gamer, I don’t really care, and seeing as I have 0 interest in the 2 mentioned games, I care even less. However I hope that they lower their stance for the sake of mp gaming in general. I mean there will always be bad seeds online, so why not allow the hood seeds in too…. Also at the rate e3 is going, there really isn’t much of a point in even owning an Xbox One X or s

    Reply

  6. Magoo

    June 14, 2017 at 13:55

    Bullshit.

    Cross platform free-chat is not enabled on Rocket League. The saltiest message you can throw at the peasant race is “What a save!”

    Why can’t they just disable free-chat on all games?

    Reply

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