If titles like Rocket League can be played across multiple platforms, what’s stopping fighting games?
As per every E3, there’s a bit of a “console war” revival as the biggest corporations behind our platforms of choice get ready to wow us with glamorous trailers. While we each hold our own preferences, we’ve seen many more fighting games find communities on both consoles and PCs. Unfortunately, when it comes to online play, those servers are still blocked off by invisible walls.
One of the announcements at E3 regarded a Nintendo Switch port for Rocket League — a sort of racing-soccer hybrid competitive game — and Minecraft, the builder everyone and their younger siblings play. Not only are those titles are coming to Nintendo’s latest gizmo, but furthermore, gamers across Xbox One, PC, and mobile platforms can all join hands and enjoy the titles free of console-war boundaries.
An obvious omission from this list is Sony, which doesn’t have nearly as strong bonds with the PC market as the Microsoft-powered Windows, but the company never has been particularly opposed to porting. When Eurogamer pressed the question of cross-platform gaming to the creators of PlayStation, Global Sales and Marketing Head Jim Ryan tip-toed around the questions. While open to ideas and conversations, there are no such plans in motion.
It’s certainly not a profound philosophical stance we have against this. We’ve done it in the past. We’re always open to conversations with any developer or publisher who wants to talk about it. Unfortunately it’s a commercial discussion between ourselves and other stakeholders, and I’m not going to get into the detail of that on this particular instance.
When Eurogamer pressed on, Ryan explained that the PlayStation universe has to be curated across demographics, which can get complicated when you have younger Minecraft players in the mix. Traditionally, the company most worried about age-restricted content and interactions has been Nintendo.
“I don’t think anything is ever a done deal,” Ryan followed up. “Anybody who is dogmatic in that manner is typically a fool. That said, to my knowledge, there is no live conversation ongoing at the moment.”
Outside of Street Fighter V’s PS4/PC interaction, can we expect more cross-platform play for fighting games at some point? The more games from other genres that get that treatment, the more likely we will. Let’s hope Sony joins the crowd in making the effort to do so. In related news: a GameSpot interview has Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, expressing desire to co-exist and grow alongside Sony.
“We don’t have to see another company fail in order for us to succeed,” Spencer said.
Sources: Eurogamer.net; GameSpot