MS allowing play with "other console and PC networks"

Check it. Microsoft is claiming that they are now open to the idea of cross-platform play. Obviously, no real impact until Sony decides the same, but still... maybe not a total pipe dream anymore?

Here's the original MS article. Rocket League's apparently allowing play between XBone and Windows right now (not unheard of, but the article makes note of it), and the way the article's worded, it almost sounds like they might be willing to allow PS4 players on that very game, if Sony wants to do so? It's a little ambiguous what they mean there, but I found the idea interesting considering we had a very recent thread about that game and the PS4/XBone gulf.

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Check it. Microsoft is claiming that they are now open to the idea of cross-platform play. Obviously, no real impact until Sony decides the same, but still... maybe not a total pipe dream anymore?

Here's the original MS article. Rocket League's apparently allowing play between XBone and Windows right now (not unheard of, but the article makes note of it), and the way the article's worded, it almost sounds like they might be willing to allow PS4 players on that very game, if Sony wants to do so? It's a little ambiguous what they mean there, but I found the idea interesting considering we had a very recent thread about that game and the PS4/XBone gulf.

Yeah, I would love for them to get all this legal BS out of the way so anyone can play on the platform they prefer and be able to play with anyone. If Microsoft is serious about this that would be a great big step for gamers.

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I would love this. I currently have an xbone collecting dust in my entertainment center because I just don't have (err, won't make) the time to play destiny on both consoles. I would love to be able to play my ps4 toons with you xb1ers.

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Check it. Microsoft is claiming that they are now open to the idea of cross-platform play. Obviously, no real impact until Sony decides the same, but still... maybe not a total pipe dream anymore?

PS4 allowed cross-play with PC out of the gate, so I'm pretty optimistic about the future, especially since Psyonix said that the feature allowing crossplay included PC "with information regarding other platforms coming soon". Considering that the only other platform is PS4 (which already had Rocket League PC crossplay Day 1), they're clearly in talks about it.

Here's the original MS article. Rocket League's apparently allowing play between XBone and Windows right now (not unheard of, but the article makes note of it), and the way the article's worded, it almost sounds like they might be willing to allow PS4 players on that very game, if Sony wants to do so? It's a little ambiguous what they mean there, but I found the idea interesting considering we had a very recent thread about that game and the PS4/XBone gulf.

2014's "The Golf Club" allowed for PS4-Xbox content sharing, so both companies have already shown a willingness to share content. This would only be good publicity for both.

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but I have to ask: from a business perspective, what does Sony have to gain? They are the ones in the catbird seat.

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but I have to ask: from a business perspective, what does Sony have to gain? They are the ones in the catbird seat.

Free publicity on exclusives, maybe? The tradeoff for crossplay would be the increased value of exclusive content.

Imagine an Xbone player going up to Saladin during Iron Banner, and seeing the two pieces of Camelot armor grayed out saying "Requires Playstation Account", and the Jade Rabbit-wielding player to his right is decked out in the gear and the Theosyion Vibrissae gauntlets.

That's like sneaking PS4 marketing on the Xbox; a bit of a douchey move, but Sony's shown that they're not afraid to kick Xbox while they're down...

But whatevs, I'd be perfectly okay with Xbox having exclusive content too if it meant playing with my friends. Rocket League already has Xbox exclusive skins (Warthog and Gearsmobile). Wonder how those will be handled...

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

Hats off to the Rocket League guys, though. That's not a challenge i would take on.

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

I bet you're right, but Bungie has said that they're not the issue. Also, Destiny seems to operate remarkably independently of the hardware. I'm always surprised when I relogin to Destiny after a day or so break I'll hear the Cryptarch or whoever talking to me before I get a disconnect error (because that's my location and state when I last quit).

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

I bet you're right, but Bungie has said that they're not the issue. Also, Destiny seems to operate remarkably independently of the hardware. I'm always surprised when I relogin to Destiny after a day or so break I'll hear the Cryptarch or whoever talking to me before I get a disconnect error (because that's my location and state when I last quit).

I can't find a source for that quote, but I would bet that it's in the context of character transfer, not cross-platform play.

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

I bet you're right, but Bungie has said that they're not the issue. Also, Destiny seems to operate remarkably independently of the hardware. I'm always surprised when I relogin to Destiny after a day or so break I'll hear the Cryptarch or whoever talking to me before I get a disconnect error (because that's my location and state when I last quit).

I can't find a source for that quote, but I would bet that it's in the context of character transfer, not cross-platform play.

Perhaps so. I realized that I'm primarily thinking about this from that perspective and less about cross-platform play.

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I would think as long as the games are using the same networking code (and assets of course) it wouldn't really matter what system the game is running on. The harder part for Destiny is the exclusives. Either they need to make you able to transfer your character with the exclusives intact (which might be against the contract for the exclusives), or they need to have some way of requiring your character to remove their exclusives before they can go onto the other platform.

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They could do exactly what they do now. The other day I started to equip a cloak while I was on the 360. I couldn't, and in the red area where the UI usually puts an unmet requirement, it said Legendary Edition required.

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In this scenario, would you consolidate the 6 separate characters down to 3 total? or would you keep them console based?

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It would be easier to just only allow you into one set per system. But if they did it this way, I'd imagine they'd have you pick three.

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In this scenario, would you consolidate the 6 separate characters down to 3 total? or would you keep them console based?

That would be a tough call.

On the one hand, my PS4 characters all have 317-319 Light and pretty much all gear outside of a Jade Rabbit. On the other hand, I have a 320 Doctrine Adept with Counterbalance on Xbone, and I have more of an attachment to my female Awoken Hunter on Xbone than my male Human Hunter on PS4.

If Bungie doubled the character selection list (even if it was only for a limited time) so that both accounts would show up on each console that would be ideal, so you could transfer your gear over and delete the characters that you didn't want. PS4 gear would only be accessible while playing on PS4 (much like the SRL Booklet gear locked out), but your characters could hop back and forth.

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I would think as long as the games are using the same networking code (and assets of course) it wouldn't really matter what system the game is running on. The harder part for Destiny is the exclusives. Either they need to make you able to transfer your character with the exclusives intact (which might be against the contract for the exclusives), or they need to have some way of requiring your character to remove their exclusives before they can go onto the other platform.

Simply dealt with. PS4 characters are only playable on a PS, Xbox characters are only playable on an Xbox. However those characters can cross play with the other consoles. Xbox peeps could see me use my hawkmoon (I don't even know what this year's PS exclusives are) and die to my hawkmoon, but I couldn't play with my hawkmoon on an xbox as it's tied to my PS character(s).

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Yeah, I'm not really expecting that, certainly not with the current game anyway. Aside from the issues you mentioned, there's also simple (conceptually, anyway) things like UI. How to handle things like sending a game invite to a PS4 player from an XBone, for example. If the game had been built from the ground up with those scenarios in mind, it might be doable. But I'm sure in the current code, there's just no facility to deal with it. IF it ever happens at all, at a minimum I would not expect it until such time as there is a "new" Destiny game, meaning not an update/expansion to the current code.

Unless I'm wrong and Bungie actually built the game with this in mind from the beginning and just needs to flip a few metaphorical switches. But that's probably not the case. I haven't been wrong since 2005. :P

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Yeah, I'm not really expecting that, certainly not with the current game anyway. Aside from the issues you mentioned, there's also simple (conceptually, anyway) things like UI. How to handle things like sending a game invite to a PS4 player from an XBone, for example. If the game had been built from the ground up with those scenarios in mind, it might be doable. But I'm sure in the current code, there's just no facility to deal with it. IF it ever happens at all, at a minimum I would not expect it until such time as there is a "new" Destiny game, meaning not an update/expansion to the current code.

Unless I'm wrong and Bungie actually built the game with this in mind from the beginning and just needs to flip a few metaphorical switches. But that's probably not the case. I haven't been wrong since 2005. :P

I think the game was built as much as possible to be platform independent to save work. You point out what would probably be a sticking point but at the same time, I could see platform-specific hooks being the topmost layer of code, if that makes sense.

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

Hats off to the Rocket League guys, though. That's not a challenge i would take on.

There are games on GOG and Steam that allow multiplayer (including coop) between OSX, WIndows and Linux. Games that cost less than Destiny.

Just saying.

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

Hats off to the Rocket League guys, though. That's not a challenge i would take on.

But Destiny's backend is already console agnostic. I mean, you can take mission and raid checkpoints between the generations in a console family, so their backend clearly doesn't use any console specific data.

Also, it's safe to assume if Destiny is ever cross-console play, 360 and PS3 are gonna be left out, because they're EOL.

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Testing.

If you start throwing different consoles and data at each other, the number of potential weird bugs starts multiplying exponentially, requiring many, many more man-hours of testing and QA. It's probably why we don't have cross-generation play now. No right-minded programmer wants to deal with a crash-bug that involves 2 PS4s, an Xbone, and and a 360.

Hats off to the Rocket League guys, though. That's not a challenge i would take on.

But Destiny's backend is already console agnostic. I mean, you can take mission and raid checkpoints between the generations in a console family, so their backend clearly doesn't use any console specific data.

Also, it's safe to assume if Destiny is ever cross-console play, 360 and PS3 are gonna be left out, because they're EOL.

Who's talking about the backend?

Anyway, debating this point is moot. Regardless of how easy this would be technically (it isn't), there'll be too much corporate push-back from Sony and Microsoft for it to ever happen. And that mountain would have to get cleared before any actual investigative work would get authorized.

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Check it. Microsoft is claiming that they are now open to the idea of cross-platform play. Obviously, no real impact until Sony decides the same, but still... maybe not a total pipe dream anymore?

Here's the original MS article. Rocket League's apparently allowing play between XBone and Windows right now (not unheard of, but the article makes note of it), and the way the article's worded, it almost sounds like they might be willing to allow PS4 players on that very game, if Sony wants to do so? It's a little ambiguous what they mean there, but I found the idea interesting considering we had a very recent thread about that game and the PS4/XBone gulf.

...there are lots of nontechnical reasons why platform owners dislike this.

For instance, if Destiny had supported cross-platform play between the PS4 and Xbox One out of the box, I probably would not own an Xbox One. I was on the fence, and keeping my friends list kept me from leaving the platform.

That MS is open to this now is a concession that the fact that the old policyt has brought them as much value as it can (by converting as many 360 owners to Xbox One owners as possible) and/or that they are admitting to themselves that they are not going to catch up to Sony's installed base during this generation, and as the smaller platform, they tend to benefit asymmetrically from this, by solving matchmaking and player base issues on their own platform by supplementing it with players from the other platform.

It's always been within their power to allow, or perhaps even to coerce, compatibility between the Xbox and Windows, although attempts to date have not gone well, and they are financially disincentivized to do so; they get a cut of game sales on Xbox but on Windows they don't. So every player that opts for playing on Windows and knows they still get access to their friends on Xbox Live is making less revenue for MS.

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It's always been within their power to allow, or perhaps even to coerce, compatibility between the Xbox and Windows, although attempts to date have not gone well, and they are financially disincentivized to do so; they get a cut of game sales on Xbox but on Windows they don't. So every player that opts for playing on Windows and knows they still get access to their friends on Xbox Live is making less revenue for MS.

Unless they can convince you to buy from the MS store, perhaps.

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Yes. A combined Xbox/Windows ecosystem would battle against both PS4 and Steam.

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It's always been within their power to allow, or perhaps even to coerce, compatibility between the Xbox and Windows, although attempts to date have not gone well, and they are financially disincentivized to do so; they get a cut of game sales on Xbox but on Windows they don't. So every player that opts for playing on Windows and knows they still get access to their friends on Xbox Live is making less revenue for MS.

Unless they can convince you to buy from the MS store, perhaps.

Right. That is very likely the other half of MS' current UWP strategy. Still, given that prices on the PC side tend to be the same or lower, I'm guessing MS is going to continue to get less from PC gamers than from Xbox owners. It would not surprise me if it were really the plan, either by the company or just among select individuals inside it, to continue to treat the PC as a gateway to the Xbox, which is weird, because the most vocal and devoted of PC gamers would view that as a step down.

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Right. That is very likely the other half of MS' current UWP strategy. Still, given that prices on the PC side tend to be the same or lower, I'm guessing MS is going to continue to get less from PC gamers than from Xbox owners. It would not surprise me if it were really the plan, either by the company or just among select individuals inside it, to continue to treat the PC as a gateway to the Xbox, which is weird, because the most vocal and devoted of PC gamers would view that as a step down.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of their audience on all counts, it seems. PC gamers, in the hardcore sense, would probably never buy a game on Xbox that's available on PC, for obvious reasons.

On the other hand, people that own an Xbox would probably buy the game on Xbox, otherwise why even own one?

UWP sounds great on paper (just as far as making one version that's easily compatible with all Windows-based machines), but I'm honestly not sure who it's for.

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It's a fundamental misunderstanding of their audience on all counts, it seems. PC gamers, in the hardcore sense, would probably never buy a game on Xbox that's available on PC, for obvious reasons.

Depends on the game. Wouldn't you rather play street fighter V on a console?

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Also, why is it assumed that any game available on PC must be going after the hardcore? Microsoft has things in place now that give them ad space on people's home PCs. They might be angling to sell games to people who don't even have consoles. Perhaps someone who sees an ad in their Start menu and just decides to try that game on a whim. Sure, that person may not have a "gaming" PC, but if they have something fairly new they can probably play plenty of games, especially the sort of games that might appeal to a "casual." ;)

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an ad in their Start menu

Is this a thing in Windows 10? Please don't tell me this is a thing in Windows 10!

Dammit, Microsoft. You released the perfect OS a few years ago, and now you've gone and become a monster. :(

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Depends on the game. Wouldn't you rather play street fighter V on a console?

Since half the fight sticks don't work with it on console . . . no, probably not.

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MS allowing play with "other console and PC networks" (Gaming)