When Sony Interactive Entertainment first enabled cross-network gameplay with PC quite a while ago, Microsoft appeared to be the hindering factor to truly having everyone playing on the same servers. Yet, when Microsoft opened up, the house of PlayStation surprisingly took a step back, refusing to let its players mix up with those on Xbox.
One of the most relevant examples of this is Mojang’s smash-hit Minecraft. The “Better Together” update aims to finally place all gamers in the same world, whether they’re playing on PC, Xbox, Switch, iOS or Android. Unfortunately, Sony doesn’t seem keen on joining the party. This isn’t the only case, with Ark: Survival Evolved being the most recent.
During an interview at Gamescom, Xbox Games Marketing General Manager Aaron Greenberg told DualShockers that the company hasn’t given up on persuading Sony.
“We’re talking to them, and we’d love to have them there. […] We want to be able to unite gamers. If you put the game, the franchise and the players first, and say “listen, Minecraft players want to be able to create, share and go from device to device. If they’re at home, they may want to play on their console. If they’re at their PC, they may want to play there. If they’re out on their mobile phone, they may want to be able to experience the same, and we shouldn’t block those experiences. That’s the idea. “
At the moment, we don’t have precise information of the real reasons behind Sony’s refusal to mingle with other console platforms. Back at E3 in June, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe President Jim Ryan brought up “responsibility to the installed base” adding that exposing children to a network they had no control of could have been a problem, but this certainly doesn’t apply to Ark.
Ryan also mentioned that back then the two companies weren’t actively talking about the issue. Luckily, it appears that now those talks have started, and we can only hope that they bear fruit.