“Right Now, It’s Just a Political Barrier”
Developer Psyonix has been working to make Rocket League a cross-platform game. First and foremost, they have worked to deliver 60 FPS for all versions. To that end, they’re working toward 720 resolution on Nintendo Switch while having it run at 60 FPS docked and undocked. It’s about performance over visuals. With new support for the Nintendo Switch, they are now poised to make crossplay accessible, thereby letting Xbox One, PS4, and Switch users play in the same lobbies. According to them, however, there’s just one problem.
“The honest answer is PlayStation has not yet granted us permission,” VP Jeremy Dunham told Polygon. “We are hopeful that being able to play cross network is still something we can go for, we think we’ve been big champions of this for the last two years trying to get people behind the idea … we believe it’s the future of the industry, and we’re hopeful that maybe the community and the media can actually help get around the idea of pushing it forward and doing what we can to make it reality. It’s our dream.”
According to Dunham, Psyonix has met all the technical requirements to support cross-platform play. Microsoft bore the greatest security requirements of the three companies, and they’ve since met those requirements. Therefore, all that’s needed is for Sony to give the go-ahead.
“It’s literally something we could do with a push of a button, metaphorically,” added Dunham. “In reality, it’s a web page with a checkbox on it. All we have to do is check that box and it would be up and running in less than an hour all over the world. That’s all we need to do.”
The question now is, Why would Sony say no? One possible answer is this, Sony is leveraging a playerbase of 60 million to Microsoft and Nintendo’s combined total of 35 million (probably less). While it is Psyonix’s dream to make cross-platform play a reality, it may be that Sony doesn’t see an immediate benefit. Even though it’s technically possible to achieve cross-platform play, Dunham is calling the barrier “a political one.”
What are your thoughts on Rocket League access to all? Should Sony bite the bullet and help the gamers? Comment down below.