An Open Letter To Xbox

The ball is in your court, Sony/Developers

Hello friends and welcome to my new series: Open Letters! In this sporadically posted column, I will write open letters to things relating to the gaming community while tying in news you may now know in a very informative, yet somewhat humorous manner. Our very first open letter is to the software giant Microsoft's gaming division, Xbox.

Microsoft. Synonymous with Bill Gates, Tablets, Phones, Phablets and Windows Vista (I shuddered too it's okay). And just last week, Xbox announced they would support cross-platform multiplayer with both players on Windows 10 and Playstation 4. In fact just EARLIER this month, I criticized Xbox themselves for potentially destroying everything we know and love about games. Now they've come full circle and decided, GAMES FOR EVERYONE! This is a great success for all gamers, allow me to elaborate.

What exactly has been done? Well, Xbox has said they're all good to go for developers to create cross-platform multiplayer, as in Xbox will support this going forward. This is unexpected as ever since the formation of Xbox Live, it has been very restricted to Xbox only content. Now that we're seeing the boys at MS let up, this could literally change everything. Xbox has stated that the developers of 3rd party games (ex. Grand Theft Auto, Destiny, Call of Duty) can create cross platform multiplayer which means those friends of yours who got a PS4 instead of an Xbox One? You can in the future hopefully play against them despite your console preference. What about those elitist PC players? Yes you too, can face off against PCMASTERRACE in whatever game tickles your fancy. Now, I say hopefully very sarcastically because we're not quite sure where this could lead.  Sony has responded to Xbox regarding the cross-platform play -Sony Worldwide Studios' Shuhei Yoshida suggests there's no technical issue preventing cross-network play between PS4 and Xbox One. Rather, the debate will revolve around whether it is in Sony's best interests to allow it.

So onto the topic of this post - an open letter to Xbox:

Thanks for reading guys at Xbox, I hope this inspires some serious fan-fiction that we can all laugh about in the future. (I never said this was a LONG open letter)

In closing, in all seriousness - this has a long way to go, so far we only have Xbox's word that they're willing to go along with this, some may call it an empty promise, some may call it the future. But until we have a concrete answer from Sony and game developers about how the science of this will work out - it will remain a pipe-dream. Happy about the news? Tell us over at the forums, or in the comments down below. Also please don't send me fan-fiction, please.