Chris Charla, leader of the ID@Xbox program has announced that Rocket League will be the first game to benefit from Microsoft’s Cross-Platform Play for the Xbox One, which would allow the Xbox One community to play with the PlayStation 4 or PC communities.
The cross-platform play will initially only be supported between the Xbox One and the PC, but Microsoft has offered an open invitation to Sony on the matter. This could mean the realisation of cross-platform play in multi-platform games between the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Cross-Platform Play will be made available to all interested developers.
This is an interesting move on the part of Microsoft, who have previously offered limited cross-buy for Quantum Break pre-orders. Under the offer, those who pre-order the game on Xbox One will also receive a Windows 10 version of the game for no extra charge. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, has also made comments towards greater synergy between the Xbox and PC platforms. Charla has also supported the comments regarding unifying the Xbox and PC ecosystems to create a unified gaming space.
It remains to be seen whether cross-platform play will be widely accepted by developers.