According to reports, Microsoft is planning to expand Xbox Live to platforms other than Windows and Xbox prominently iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch.
This was teased in Microsoft’s upcoming session at GDC where more details will be announced on this very topic. The session is title ‘Xbox Live: Growing & Engaging Your Gaming Community Across iOS, Android, Switch, Xbox, and PC (Presented by Microsoft)’.
Microsoft says that this move will help expand Xbox Live to
over 2 billion devices with the release of our new cross-platform Xbox development kit. Xbox Live players are highly engaged and active on Xbox and PC, but now they can take their gaming achievement history, their friends list, their clubs, and more with them to almost every screen.
Microsoft thinks that bringing Xbox Live to all these devices will help developers to connect players between iOS, Android and Switch. This is a great move and will certainly allow more games to support cross-platform.
At this moment, the most cross-platform supportive games are Fortnite and Minecraft and both of these games are more than just games. They both became trends when they were launched and have an extremely high player count than any other game.
Fortnite currently supports cross-platform over Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android and even PS4. Sony announced last year that they are starting a beta version of cross-platform only for Fortnite which meant that players can connect to others playing on other platforms including Xbox One.
Coming to cross-platform, no company has been as rigid as Sony. At this point, only Sony is not supporting cross-play for most titles while both Nintendo and Microsoft have shown willingness to allow cross-play on their flagship consoles. Allowing Fortnite is a step in the right direction.
Microsoft’s latest announcement also mentions only Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android which shows that they do not plan on bringing it on PS4 at this moment and the main reason behind this could be Sony’s rigidity in the past.
Microsoft will share more details on this project during its GDC conference which is taking place next month. We will share more updates on this if Microsoft announces anything.
