With the subject of cross-play coming up more frequently as a feasible idea that’s slowly starting to be utilized, players want to be able to play with friends across the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. Unfortunately, Sony infamously shot that down and has not been willing to allow it as of yet. Microsoft has now confirmed that they are in talks with Sony to make it happen.
In an interview with Game Reactor at Gamescom 2017, Head of Xbox Games Marketing Aaron Greenberg responded to a question about cross-play by saying that they are “absolutely” talking with Sony about the subject. He even brought up their partnership with Minecraft as that is a now Microsoft-owned IP that is currently published on PlayStation.
“Absolutely, yeah. We’re talking to Sony [about cross-play],” he said. “We do partner with them on Minecraft and of course we would like to enable them to be part of that; one community, to unite gamers. So we’re talking to them and we’re hopeful that they’ll be supportive of it.”
It’s a short response that doesn’t provide a ton of answers, such as how far along the talks are, if Sony is being receptive, when we could expect the feature, etc., but it does lend hope that Xbox and PlayStation gamers could unite in the future to play their favorite games.
The developers of Ark: Survival Evolved recently stated that they have cross-play working internally and are open to implementing the feature, however Sony would not allow it. Rocket League developer Psyonix also echoed these remarks.
