Do you remember the console wars in the early 2000s? You got an Xbox to play Halo, and your best friend got a PlayStation to play Final Fantasy. Even though you lived down the street from each other, you couldn't play together. You were divided by a hardware wall, gated by walled gardens that let you play with friends only if you picked the right console.
That time is quickly passing. The walls are breaking, and a new thing is here: cross-platform gaming.
Being able to play with people on PC, consoles, and mobile from the same server is now the norm. Because of this, the way developers make games, how people come together, and even how money is made from video games are all changing. This is the start of a more user-friendly online world where the type of device you have becomes less important than the game you are playing.
Understanding the Closed Gardens
For years, companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo made a lot of money and had a reason to keep their ecosystems closed. People buying new consoles to play a new game with their friend drove the sales. If your friend only had a PS4, you had to get a PS4 to play with your friend. This created a divide in the overall average player base of a game that was published on all consoles app games.
Even if the companies don’t want to close ecosystems, the player base with the most money to buy consoles and games created a need for changes. They saw a gap in the market with the increasing popularity of online multiplayer games. They had a need for a way to play a game with their friends regardless of which console they had.
In the game Rocket League, the developers had to create a way to play the game across all platforms. This created the push that made the console companies have to reverse their decision. When the console companies finally made a decision to allow all people to play across game consoles, they all closed ecosystems and have made it a requirement to buy and sell games for developers to allow cross play.
Benefits for Developers and Publishers
Gamers enjoy the ability to play with their friends, and it is now finally recognized that developers and publishers have the ability to take advantage of this long-established barrier to increase profits.
Player Pool Merging
When you play an online multiplayer game, you expect that the time spent searching for an opponent is less than the time spent playing the game. Merging the player pools of PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch users means that you will get opponents much more quickly, especially in regions with fewer players, or in games that may not be as popular. A merged player base means more games, more players, and better game access for every player.
Longer Game Lifespan
Cross-play supports a game's population longer than games with separated platforms. If a game stops receiving updates and the player population decreases, that game becomes dead. If there is a large player base on a different platform, players will stop playing on the platform that is less populated, until there is a large enough population to sustain play. Cross-play increases the time it takes for a game to die by adding more players to a platform where a population may have previously died.
Impact on the Gaming Industry
The impact of Cross-play is far reaching. It affects every game, whether it be a fast paced shooter, a strategic and tactical game, or even a casual mobile game.
The Input Method Debate
Not everyone is happy with how platforms merge. A lot of issues with this are from how different people view controllers vs. keyboard and mouse. In FPS games like Call of Duty or Apex Legends, PC gamers are able to pinpoint others to get the first shot, while controller players have aim assist to make them equal.
They are always changing the game to their desires. Some games have vertical chasms in the spons that are divinely imbalanced because of the aymeric equity that is established. In these games, controller users have all of the same buttons that controller players have access to equal to.
Connectivity Across Digital Entertainment
The same combinations of entertainment and different experiences offer untouched games. In the novel features of the digital world, all players have instantaneous access to their personalized digital identity — a feature most consumers have come to expect and are not left unaware of this convenience, like in the streaming wars where you can stop a movie playing on your TV and pick the same digital identity something else on your phone and resume streaming the same service.
The iGaming industry is changing too. Players expect their progress, money, and rewards to be available to them on any device. If a player signs up for a casino bonus on their computer, then they should be able to use the bonus money and free spins on their phone while driving to work. Users don't want to have to deal with separate mobile or desktop accounts. People expect their bonuses and progress to be everywhere, just like the cloud saves on RPG games.
The Mobile Powerhouse
Modern smartphones are the biggest reason for cross-platform gaming. Mobile games are even able to run compatible and slightly downgraded versions of AAA console games.
Games like Genshin Impact and Minecraft do mobile gaming the best. Players can gather resources on their mobile device, and then raid with a high-end computer. Shared progression and multiplayer lobbies are a must in the mobile gaming niche. The mobile market is larger than console and PC gaming combined, so opening mobile cross-play includes a massive audience for a game.
Challenges to Full Integration
No matter how far we have come, we still have a long way to go on truly universal cross-platform gaming.
- Console Limitations: The Switch is great, but it is far less powerful than a PS5 or Xbox Series X. Making one game run fairly on all these consoles is a huge challenge.
- Platform holder Discrepencies: Apple and Sony take 30% of any game transactions. If a player buys a skin on PC because money goes to the developer and it is then playable on the PlayStation, Sony makes no money which is a problem. These platform tax issues get complicated and go behind close doors.
A Future Without Hardware Boundaries
The goal of cross-platform gaming is a future with no hardware restrictions. With the rise of cloud gaming, the consoles or PCs that you have at home will grow to be less and less relevant.
In this future the console war as we know it will be over. A service war will take its place. Subscription based gaming and software systems will take importance over the plastic console subservient to your television.
New standards have come out and players have felt what freedom looks like when they can play with anyone and from anywhere on any devices. Other gamers stuck like on devices playing like they did on the isolated islands are stuck in the past! The future of gaming is going to be all about being connected and open.
