Too much work?
Eurogamer sat down with Shuhei Yoshida and confronted him on the one question everyone is wondering — will Sony accept Microsoft’s proposal for cross-network play?
While he initially started off with a rather cagey response similar to what we heard earlier (“we are committed to PC and other publishers”), he did eventually get to the meat of the issue. Yoshida states, “Because PC is an open platform it’s much more straightforward. Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish. We also have to look at the technical aspect – and the technical aspect could be the easiest. We also have to look at policy issues and business issues as well.”
Ok, so at least that wasn’t an outright “no?” Either way, it doesn’t seem like Sony is particularly keen on going through all the work to make it happen, to potentially benefit the publisher that’s in second place in the console market. While people have been pointing the finger at Microsoft for being too late to the game, its online infrastructure has always been more robust than Sony, so I hope that if the program does grow, the latter feels pressured into going forward with the initiative.
Because really, in the end, we all win if PC, PlayStation, and Xbox owners can all play together.
