Cross-play has been a rather heavily-discussed topic just recently; Sony's reluctance to allow cross-platform play with other systems in Fortnite caused quite the stir, and this even led to Nintendo and Microsoft teaming up for a Minecraft trailer which seemingly took a small swipe at the PS4 manufacturer.
During the recent 78th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, former Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima and Senior Executive Officer Susumu Tanaka talked about Nintendo's stance on cross-play, explaining the company's practices and beliefs in a little more detail. Here's what they had to say:
Q: Crossplay with other platforms on the Nintendo Switch versions of games such as Fortnite and Minecraft has been a point of appeal. Could you talk about the relationships between Nintendo and other publishers, and your initiatives for multi-platform titles?
Kimishima: I will have to refrain from commenting directly about (crossplay in) Fortnite and Minecraft because those are not Nintendo titles. But I will say that our fundamental way of thinking about offering Nintendo titles on other platforms remains unchanged.
Tanaka: Crossplay basically comes about from conversations between publishers and platform holders. We are inclined to do what we can to help publishers incorporate crossplay when that is what they want. The other parties involved also have a say in whether we are able to reach this outcome or not, so we will continue to discuss it with them.
Essentially, Nintendo appears to be incredibly open to the idea of cross-play and will go as far as actively helping publishers achieve this when it is wanted. It's great news for Nintendo players, of course, and the success of the current cross-play features in games like Fortnite and Minecraft has us confident that we'll see similar stories in future games, too.
Is cross-play an important feature to you? Do you consider it an essential part of online multiplayer games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
[source nintendo.co.jp]
Comments 20
I love the weekly cross-play articles. They always bring the corporate apologists out of the woodwork
Every party is understandable though:
PS4 - We have the biggest marketshare and even losing one guy because he can go from our platform to competitors is a bad idea for us, so we have no incentive.
XBOX - We don't have any marketshare, we would like to move our product in any way possible. Especially since we own PC, we would just like you to buy games through our marketplace.
Nintendo - We are mildly positive about crossplay, cause those are the games we don't care about anyways. It's not like you can crossplay Splatoon 2 with anything else, out core games are still being released only on our platform. The rest can do whatever.
I wonder if Nintendo would be so keen if they had the lion's share of the market ?
I love my switch and think Nintendo have done well , but if they were in the same situation as Sony , I don't know if they would be as keen on segmenting the console market.
This whole policy on cross play is so delightfully atypical for Nintendo but I’m loving it. I’ve been playing Fortnite with friends on PC who I wouldn’t otherwise be able to play with. The more games like that the better.
@gortsi It certainly does that.
"Sony's protecting their market share, others would do the same, etc". Nevermind that by 'protecting' their 'glorious crown' they are swaying some folks to play on other devices games that could get them some of those sweet sweet microtransactions.
It doesn't really affect me, everyone I know plays these games on PS4 so it doesn't make a difference.
This is how you act when you ain't afraid of the competition. True be told is that Nintendo exclusives are amazing games and is their source of success so adding crossplay for them isn't a big deal cause they know people will put money on the next Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Smash, etc.
Keep going the Cross Play with Microsoft, Nintendo !
Sony can have their own party, Party with NOBODY.
@Anti-Matter Lol haha
I'm big on cross play and thanks to Fortnite I'm also into Cross Progression. It's awesome to be able to play with people from different consoles. I have an XBOX ONE so it's epic to be able to play with my son while I'm on my Nintendo. I hope Warframe does it as well, even though it seems as of late it is a "No".
I like that Nintendo are helping game developers achieve crossplay. It gives players more people to play with and helps to stop the online of games becoming dead.
For the next gen, I can see crossplay becoming an important factor in whether people will pick up a particular console or not. So Sony can get away with not supporting crossplay right now but not forever.
Wow. Has Nintendo been this nice always
@Hrimfaksi
Or, and hear me out, more people who only bought Xbox One's to play with their friends might get a PS4 instead because they can play with them anyway. It's a dumb excuse. The amount of people they would lose would be small, and having a good reputation of being consumer friendly is more important.
Well that's unsurprising, because Nintendo are not Sony (and Microsoft aren't either).
All three companies have in common that they want to make profits.
Two of these at least care a tiny little bit about the players as well.
Guess which two of those three I'm referring to?
I don't know what Furukawa will do, but I love that Kimishima still has at least some of that Iwata drive.....notice how he totally went on the defensive, missing the actual point of the question, and heard "Nintendo" and "multi-platofrm", and where the interviewer was asking about Nintendo's approach with third party multiplatform games he immediately reacted to shut down conversation of Nintendo making multiplatform titles? That's actually pleasant to see, even if he's outgoing.
Of course, since they have the most to benefit from it
@Nunya not entirely cause I think they would feel that the bad press would hurt them more then it is hurting sony since their first party games wouldn't be cross platform.
It's a big reason why I have Rocket League on Switch instead of PS4.
It's not so much that it is important in the grand scheme of things as it is a good show of keeping the consumer's best interests at heart. I could do without it but I definitely like that Nintendo is open to it.
"Nintendo appears to be incredibly open to the idea of cross-play"
.. incredible how? It would be more so if Sony said it.
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