Xbox One Will Support Cross-Platform Multiplayer With PS4, PC

If you like playing online multiplayer games on your Xbox One but hate that you can never play your pal because she’s a PlayStation 4 devotee, here’s some promising news.

Microsoft announced today that it is going to allow game developers to build multiplayer games that don’t just work on both Xbox One and PCs running Windows 10, but also on other game consoles.

That means, in theory, a publisher wouldn’t need to support separate servers for just Xbox and just PS4 players. Instead, players from all platforms could commingle and annoy the heck out of each other regardless of what machine they’re using at home.

What it doesn’t mean is that you can fire up some game right now on your Xbox and play your brother-in-law on his PS4. This is just the beginning of the process.

“Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players,” explains Microsoft’s Chris Charla.

Rocket League — a game that combines the thrill of remote control cars with… indoor soccer — will be among the first games to allow cross-platform play between Xbox One and PC, and Charla says there is an “open invitation for other networks to participate as well.”

As TechCrunch points out, one speedbump to integrating Xbox and PlayStation players in the same game is the issue of duplicate screen names. We can’t have both KingBong4398s playing the same game at the same time. It could create some sort of time-space paradox… or just confusion about which one is on your team.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.