Psyonix, the developer behind Rocket League, is ready to bring Xbox and PlayStation gamers together, pending Sony’s approval. The developer has announced that cross-play between PS4 and Xbox One is ready to launch, but can only move forward once Sony allows it to.
Rocket League is the massively popular car soccer game that now boasts over 19 million players. To keep matchmaking as seamless as possible, Psyonix hosts all games on its own servers. This allows Xbox One gamers to play with their PC brethren, and it’s the same on PS4. But as of now, PS4, Xbox One, and PC gamers cannot all play in the same match.
In a surprise move, Microsoft gave the go-ahead to allow Xbox gamers to play against those on PS4. This effectively put the ball in Sony’s court. In an interview with IGN, Psyonix Vice President Jeremy Dunham said that cross-platform play is ready and could be up within a few hours. “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” said Dunham. “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.” If Psyonix were to pull off such a feat, it would be the first time that gamers on separate console platforms could play against each other online. “We’re anxiously awaiting that, just like the rest of our fans” said Dunham.
While many are speculating that Sony is having philosophical reservations, the real reason could just be that the decision is mired in bureaucracy. “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” said Dunham. “We definitely ask them for updates often, and we’re still very confident that they’re eventually going to open those doors and welcome us in, but we also are really understanding that it’s going to take a while especially given all the ramifications of everything. It was just as much of a surprise to them as I think the rest of the world when Microsoft said that they would do it.”
Ultimately Dunham is optimistic and does feel that cross-platform play is an inevitability.
