Xbox One owners may be able to play certain games online with people, even if those players don’t own an Xbox One.
In the lead up to the third ID@Xbox Game Developers Conference, the Director of ID@Xbox, Chris Charla posted a letter on the Xbox news page, highlighting several of the new changes coming about for indie developers using the ID@Xbox program. While a lot of it is mostly technical, with MonoGame Support and the continuation of Windows Game Preview being highlighted, the biggest announcement in the letter was “cross-network play.”
According to Charla, “in addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.”
Charla also mentions how Rocket Leauge will be the first to take advantage of this feature enabling cross-network play between Xbox and Windows 10 users, but also offering an open invitation to any other networks that want to join.
Details are relatively sparse, and while the prospect of tearing down the walls of platform exclusivity is definitely a hopeful concept, there are still some questions left unanswered particularly, how will this work for playing with friends who own different consoles? Either way, it’s certainly an exciting prospect and an exciting time for online gaming.
