Last March, Rocket League developer Psyonix declared that they would break new ground by allowing PS4, Xbox One, and PC players to connect and play Rocket League together. Now, Jeremy Dunham, vice president of Psyonix, has announced that the only thing holding the launch back is Sony’s approval.
In an interview with IGN, Dunham stated:
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.
Until now, PS4 users and Xbox One users were relegated to their own servers. Since multiplayer for games are hosted on Sony and Microsoft’s servers and services, cross-platform play was typically reserved for just the PC version. Even then, friends with two different consoles could not play the same game together.
With Rocket League’s proposed Cross-Network Play, all gamers, regardless of system, will be able to play together. The problem for now is Sony, who has not signed off on the project. Dunham stresses that Sony is not going to withdraw their consent but that they are instead “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.”
With multiplayer games becoming increasingly popular, numerous games could benefit from cross-network play. What do you think would make a good cross-network game? What are some potential hiccups that could arise from this? Let us know in the comments below.
