Rocket League becomes the first game on Xbox One to offer owners of Microsoft’s console the chance to play with others on another platform, developer Psyonix has announced. Speaking on their official website, Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham said (via VideoGamer):
We’re really excited to bring Xbox One and PC players closer together. Cross-network play has been something that Xbox One gamers have been asking us for since the day we launched, and thanks to Microsoft’s new cross-network policies, we’re proud to give it to them.
Microsoft announced the cross-platform feature back in March, but up until now no software has actually supported the service. It’s surely a good thing that Rocket League fans now have more options when it comes to having a larger pool of players to compete against, but we can’t wait to see the potential network marriages that could happen in the future, especially as it’s technically possible for Xbox One/PlayStation 4 cross-platform play, assuming all the parties involved agree to it.
Microsoft previously stated that the decision to do such a thing would ultimately rest in the hands of individual developers.
In addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players.
Could we really have a single homogeneous online network in the future that doesn’t limit gamers to being matched only with players on the same console as them? It’s certainly possible, and the next few years will be interesting, indeed.