Sony is going all in on cross-play

Sony has confirmed that from a tech point of view they can now enable crossplay on any game, but they’ll start with COD: Modern Warfare.

One of the biggest surprises about Sony’s dominance of the current generation of consoles is not so much the sales of the PlayStation 4 but how they’ve managed to avoid almost any major controversy.

Of the various minor upsets they’ve caused, perhaps the most infamous was their refusal to support crossplay – the ability for people on different consoles or the PC to play together in the same game.

They did relent after a while though and now they’re no long fighting against the concept they’re actively embracing it, with a new system that has now officially moved out of beta and will be used in the upcoming Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare.




As part of a short interview with PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, Wired revealed that the new system can now support any game that wants to use it. Which still doesn’t mean every game will have crossplay, but they could if they wanted to.

‘The track record of the incumbent platform winning the next time around is not a great one,’ said Ryan. ’So the major thrust of my executive energy is to avoid complacency.’

That’s an interesting comment that seems to admit that Sony’s earlier resistance to crossplay was a mistake – and that dominating in one generation is no guarantee of doing well in the next.

Ryan was primarily talking about the recent price cut for the PlayStation Now, where he referred to ‘many false steps taken, many lessons learned’ in regards to the streaming service.

He also confirmed that Sony had paid through the nose to have Grand Theft Auto V as part of the service.

‘I’d prefer not to disclose the terms, but let’s say it’s a good deal for Rockstar,’ he said.

Even before the price cut, many expected that PlayStation Now would form the basis of Sony’s next gen streaming service, and their means to rival Microsoft’s Project xCloud and Google Stadia, and yesterday’s news, and Ryan’s comments, seem to confirm that.

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