Rocket League is just a day, and a notice of approval from Sony, away from having cross platform play between all major systems.
Psyonix, the developers of Rocket League, has announced that their longtime project of allowing players from each gaming platform to play with each other is ready to launch. Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham spoke with IGN on the matter:
“Right now, we’re literally at the point where all we need is the go-ahead on the Sony side. And we can, in less than a business day, turn it on and have it up and working no problem. It’d literally take a few hours to propagate throughout the whole world, so really we’re just waiting on the permission to do so.”
Dunham is quick to point out that he understands Sony’s position: “Sony’s such a big company that I’m sure it takes a while for them to figure out what it is that the roadblocks are, what sort of issues they might run into with other titles, any number of things that I can’t even begin to speculate on.”
Back in March, Psyonix was working on cross-platform play for Rocket League and hopeful that they would get approval from Microsoft and Sony. The above statement indicates that Microsoft has already given Psyonix the go ahead for their Xbox One and PC versions of Rocket League.
Both Microsoft and Sony issued statements in March stating they would be open to cross-network play between the two consoles, though neither actually acknowledged the other by name. In April, Microsoft declared, “we’re ready” –with the implication that Sony was holding up a feature both Microsoft and Sony audiences wanted.
Microsoft’s Xbox One struggled before it came out for several reasons, one major one being its initial media-over-gaming focus and another being the console’s original inconsistencies about game-sharing. Sony has since held the narrative that they’re the ones who really care about gaming.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has focused on technical offerings: The developing holo-lens, backwards compatibility, and now cross-platform play. As long as Sony holds out, they keep the differences between the consoles more distinct.
However, the movement seems to be coming. Blizzard is interested in cross-platform play for their mega-successful Overwatch, and Dunham is confident. “I think that the more companies that show the world that they’re interested in that sort of thing, and the more communities that get behind it, the more likely it is that it’ll happen […] we think that the gaming community as a whole is the final voice in this – it’s what they want which will determine where we go eventually.”
Rocket League is available now, and has just released 4 new cars and several maps.