Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

More Games Should Learn Cross-Platform From Street Fighter V

More Games Should Learn Cross-Platform From Street Fighter V

Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise is often seen as the premier fighting game and features one of the most enduring competitive scenes in all of gaming. The game still draws massive audiences and players and non-players alike gather en masse to witness some of the title’s legends battle it out in national and international events annually. Realizing that it can only be healthy for the game to keep the community united, Capcom announced that gamers on the PC and PS4 will be able to trade Hadoukens in cross-platform play.

This is certainly a feature that I would love to see become just a bit more trendy. It isn’t totally unprecedented at this point for major third-party developers to make deals that allow for cross-platform play; Portal allowed players to complete the co-op campaign together on either PC or PS4, for example. Unlike other examples, though, Street Fighter V seems better poised to introduce a new standard to gamers and inspire other developers to follow suit.

If properly executed, Street Fighter V may offer more than just a unified community; it could bring benefits that even a platform exclusive could not. Logically, the title’s availability on two major platforms makes it far more likely to grow an audience. Street Fighter V is also a game that is purely replay value, with an incomprehensible amount of longevity. As time goes on, word gets out, and more players pick up the game through deals on PSN and Steam, the competitive pool will only grow. It’s hard not to see how this will be good for matchmaking. More players means better chances to find good connections, and a unified community means players will be matched with the best competition that the game has to offer; not the best competition the platform has to offer.

There are, of course, some major hurdles to cross-platform play. One major hurdle that developers will often need to leap is Microsoft’s reluctance to facilitate cross-platform play for third party developers. The massively popular MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn , was recently shot down on the Xbox One. Naoki Yoshida, game director and producer for the title, claims the Microsoft wouldn’t even allow for cross-platform play between Windows and Xbox One, never mind the possibility of allowing Xbox players to play with Sony players like they did with Final Fantasy XI . Fable Legends , a first party title for Microsoft, will be able to go cross-platform between Xbox and PC.

More Games Should Learn Cross-Platform From Street Fighter V

It makes you wonder how Microsoft will handle this summer’s breakout hit, Rocket League . While not officially announced for Xbox One, developer Psyonix has stated that it is definitely porting Rocket League to other platforms. Currently, the game, which has garnered over 5 million downloads in a few short months, offers cross-platform play between PS4 and PC. If the game does arrive on Xbox One, will Microsoft once again bar players from the larger competitive pool and divide the community? And if so, how does this impact the game’s season rankings? Could you imagine if a ranked League of Legends season had a fragmented player base? It just doesn’t make sense for games with a largely competitive nature.

Other hurdles, beyond inflexible policy, do exist. It’s hard to see typical RTS or FPS games making the jump to cross-platform anytime soon. Different hardware and input devices make the playing field a little uneven at times. Attempts at cross-platform FPS have been made before, as was the case when Microsoft let Shadowrun players on the Xbox 360 play with PC players. As predicted, the PC players had a distinct advantage when it came to things like, well, aiming.

Going forward, I’d like to see gamers observe the effects that cross-platform play has on Street Fighter V . If things work out and we enjoy what we see, we should then ask that this feature becomes more of a standard in certain genres of games when possible. Obviously, business will get in the way at some turns, but one of the most important facets of business is demand. As gamers, voicing demand is on our side of the equation. Let’s see if they supply it.

To top