Mike Ybarra, vice president of Xbox, told VG247 that it’s happy to talk to the likes of Valve and Nintendo when it comes to getting multiplayer games working across multiple platforms, not just between Xbox One and Windows.
“It’s more about gamer choice, more about making an IP on our platform last longer. I don’t care about where they play, I just want people to have fun playing games because that’s just better for the industry,” said Ybarra.
“The demands of consumers and developers have changed,” he continued. “People are like, ‘we want all of our gamers in one multiplayer pool together, playing’.
“We totally agree with that. If any developer wants to have that conversation… Valve is right down the street from us, Nintendo is too – they’re like a block from us. We’re having these discussions as developers come up, and we’re completely open to that.”It needs to be said that this openness is not sourced in altruism. Microsoft lost control of PC gaming years ago, ceding a virtual monopoly to VALVe for PC game distribution; and they lost this console generation to Sony's PS4, having been outpaced in consoles sold by two to one before they simply stopped humiliating themselves by reporting their XBOne sales numbers. Crossplay between XBO-S/XBO-X and any other platform does Microsoft nothing but good, here, which is why they're suddenly a lot more open to this sort of congenial collaboration... instead of, say, trying to seize control of PC gaming from Steam with Windows 8, or with UWP. With Windows 8 and UWP having both failed, it seems that Microsoft has finally been able to pry open their ears, and hear what gamers have been telling them for years.
It also needs to be said that Microsoft's consumer-friendly XBox division isn't exactly on the same page as the rest of the organization. Microsoft have been guilty of a lot of anti-consumer bullshit when you look at their corporate activities more broadly since Windows 10's launch, and the larger organization is still showing every holding out on almost every pro-consumer measure that's been suggested to them. The company that spent a year and a half foot-dragging and fighting in court, only to grudgingly give users control over their updates again, anyway, is a very different beast than their suddenly-consumer-friendly gaming division.
Still, it's progress, and the right tone and messaging from Microsoft at a time when big game publishers are mostly moving in a direction of more anti-consumer bullshit. I guess I'll take it. Hell, if Microsoft and VALVe can work together to make the Steam Client easily downloadable on an XBox, I might even consider picking one up for my living room.