Rocket League Cross Play On Switch, Developers Frustrated At PlayStation

Nintendo recently revealed at E3 that Rocket League was coming to the Switch and it would feature cross play. This would allow owners of the portable gaming console to play with others on the Xbox One and the PC. However, Sony is still refusing to provide the same treatment to PlayStation 4 users other than with the PC, which is frustrating the game’s developers.

The car soccer competitive game created by Psyonix is one of the most popular titles across all platforms, which makes for a huge user base. In a recent interview with VentureBeat, developers at the studio expressed their frustration at Sony’s continued refusal to make the PS4 version of Rocket League capable of playing with other consoles, with studio big wig Jeremy Dunham saying that having players on all platforms able to play with each other is their dream.

“Our dream is that true cross-network play — we want it on all the platforms,” Dunham said. “It’s very important to us, for multiple reasons. One, you can have faster matchmaking. The bigger the pool, the faster the matchmaking. It benefits everybody. Two, you get better quality opponents. In a bigger pool, you have better people who are closer to your location.”

As to the reason why Sony is not allowing cross play with both the Switch and the Xbox On, PlayStation marketing head Jim Ryan gave a frankly unconvincing answer. Supposedly, the company is concerned that providing such a feature might expose children to some troublesome experiences. To that, Dunham responded that such a concern makes no sense.

Since Sony is already allowing cross play with the PC, which is arguably the least secure of the available platforms, Dunham argues that it would make no difference if the other consoles are added into the mix. What’s more, the developer says that both the Xbox One and the Switch offer better security than the PC.

This stance by Sony is arguably a problem for gamers as well, since competitive titles often benefit from a cross play setup, Forbes reports. The company is disadvantaging its own users, at this point, because the number of players they can compete with is limited.