Any word on cross-platform multiplayer?

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Monday, February 18, 2013, 12:02 (4078 days ago) @ Beorn

There's another problem with doing cross-platform multiplayer. When I'm on an XBox game, I'm identified to the other players by my XBox Live gamertag. I can send them messages and invite them to voice chat using XBL's built-in functions, which only work with other XBoxes. None of those things would work between XBox Live and PlayStation network. Mostly for technical reasons, but also because of politics - even if it could be made to work, neither MS nor Sony is interested in doing so.

Given the way things work now, if Bungie did manage to architect Destiny so that you could see players on the other platform, it's likely that's all you could do - see them. It's somewhat feasible that if the game and its services were built so that Destiny's servers (assuming there are dedicated servers, which is not a given at this point) are aware that a character of a certain class with certain gear is in X location performing Y action, that character could be displaye to other Destiny players. You'd see them running around doing things in the world, but they probably wouldn't have a name listed (because your XBox can't see PSN info), and you probably wouldn't be able to send them messages or invite them, or otherwise interact.

The only feasible solution I can see would be if Bungie had their own player database and communication system, similar to XBL or PSN but operating only within Destiny. But again, I don't see either MS or Sony allowing that. Also, it would be super awkward and everyone would need to have accounts there in addition to their XBL or PSN account.

In short, the politics and technical architecture of the current console platforms make this very unlikely.