It was announced by Microsoft today that they have reached out and secured a deal with Sony to allow cross-platform play on titles both running on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. This comes after an uphill battle where Sony refused to allow any type of cross-platform play with any system due to fears over security reasons. It is no secret that Sony hasn’t had the best protection for PlayStation Network as user accounts are compromised often. While this hasn’t happened in quite some time, hacker groups such as LulzSec were responsible for bringing down Sony’s PlayStation network.
However, Microsoft has been spearheading a campaign to bring gaming to a much broader audience. Microsoft began their endeavor by launching Play Anywhere for select Xbox One titles which allowed gamers to buy a Play Anywhere title on either Xbox or a Windows 10 PC and have access to the game on both platforms. Recently, Microsoft announced that they were allowing the Xbox Game Pass to be used on Nintendo Switch, bringing Xbox titles to a rival console.
Now, it appears that Microsoft has repaired the bridge between themselves and Sony as cross-platform play will finally become a reality!
Microsoft announced several titles which will launch with the cross-platform partnership with more to come in the future. Those titles include:
- Minecraft
- Fortnite
- Doom
- Overwatch
Phil Spencer released this statement in regards to cross-platform play.
“Xbox continues to be committed to bringing a gaming experience to as many gamers as possible. We have reached new boundaries with Xbox Game Pass on Nintendo Switch and now we are very happy and proud to announce that we have enabled the ability to play some of your favorite Xbox games with PlayStation users. While the initial list is short, we felt that it contains some fan-favorites such as Fortnite and Overwatch. We will continue to work with Sony to bring even more titles to the forefront. For now, we hope you enjoy these games when they become cross-platform enabled this summer.”
Phil Spencer did give a release time frame but not an exact release date. The press release did state; however, that more details will be available at this year’s E3 conference in which Microsoft will be the only major company out of the big three to have a live presence there. Sony has opted out of this year’s E3 and Nintendo will most-likely have another pre-recorded Treehouse event. Even Electronic Arts is skipping this year’s E3 as well.
Needless to say, this is an exciting time to be a gamer. Microsoft is making major strides in the gaming industry to make gaming available to everyone no matter what system you play and this is just another step in the right direction!