Posted in: Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Video Games | Tagged: cross-play, playstation, playstation 4, sony

PlayStation 4's Cross-Play Feature Is Finally Out Of Beta

The PlayStation 4's cross-play beta has officially graduated to a full-fledged feature, which means any developer can now utilize it.

The option was originally a beta feature that only a select number of titles could utilize. It appeared in games like Rocket League and Fortnite. Now, it's available to all developers. According to Wired, any developer can now implement cross-play in their games going forward.

Over the last year, games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Dauntless have already enabled cross-play for PlayStation 4 users. Now, Xbox One and PC players will also be able to play against friends on PlayStation 4 when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare debuts later this month.

Oddly enough, Sony didn't come forward with an announcement or a blog post to break the news. Instead, it simply came by way of an errant comment in the aforementioned Wired story. Sony hasn't always been very forthcoming about making cross-play a thing. In fact it's a relatively new position for the company.

In 2017, Sony made the move to block cross-play for games like Rocket League and Minecraft across other consoles. At the time, Jim Ryan, PlayStation head of global sales and marketing, made a flimsy case defending their stance.

"We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe," said Ryan during an interview with Eurogamer. "Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it's something we have to think about very carefully."

However, Sony eventually changed its stance, thankfully. Now, we'll probably see cross-play used more. It's something players have demonstrated they absolutely want to see in their games, after all. Since games are more flexible than ever these days, it makes sense to let everyone play together.

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