The leading industry in software, especially in operating systems – Microsoft, has just pushed the barrier with cross-platform play in Epic Games’ free-to-play battle royale game, Fortnite.
In this recent announcement from Epic Games, the team behind Fortnite revealed that there will be cross-progression, cross-purchase, and even cross-play between Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. While Mac is still considered to be PC and iOS mobile, there’s no doubt here that even Apple, Microsoft’s biggest competitor, is willing to do cross-platform play with its rivals. Cross-play was possible when Epic Games’ apparently forgot to “switch off” its cross-platform play between the PS4 and Xbox One last year which proved that it wasn’t impossible. The Xbox One is still a console and built with the same x86 architecture like the PS4, there shouldn’t be any technical differences that would prevent both systems from cross-play.
“Contrary to what may have been implied, Microsoft has long been a leading voice in supporting cross-platform play, connecting players across PC, mobile and all consoles. We’ve been working together with them over the last several months to make this possible, and will bring this functionality to Fortnite players on Xbox right along with other platforms.” said the Fortnite team.
However, Sony is still not “willing” to feature cross-play with other platforms as they want to safeguard their players’ information and the children from “external influences” and that’s according to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Jim Ryan. Both Psyonix and Mojang have their games, Rocket League and Minecraft, support online play across PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Sony’s PS4 cross-plays with only the PC and still disregards Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch platforms.
May it be a business decision or greed, soon, Sony will eventually join the cross-platform train in the future. But the question is: when?
Fortnite Battle Royale is free across all platforms and it’s coming to iOS and Android soon.