You know what would be great? Playing Titanfall on your Xbox One with your friend who just refuses to touch anything put his high-end PC. Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One closely resemble modern PC architecture, so there’s a certain group of people that just want to cross the streams and find out what happens. Microsoft Studios corporate vice-president, Phil Spencer, understands that frame of mind, and actually thinks it makes sense.
"I'm not allowed to leak things," Spencer said to AusGamers. "But I think what you're talking about makes a lot of sense. Now, you have differences in Windows gaming and console gaming around control and input… in fact, if you go back to Shadow Run on Xbox 360 – something I worked on – we had PC players playing against Xbox 360 customers. We didn't have tremendous success with that, but we learned a lot from it.
"And then earlier this year we released Skulls of the Shogun, which was a game we launched on all three platforms on the same day, and you could start on one platform and then save the game to the Cloud and play across any of the screens and progress. And then Halo: Spartan Assault has some links between Halo 4 and Spartan Assault, even though they're very different games.”
One of the latest trends seen in next-gen gaming is the inclusion of a second screen, like a tablet, to help immerse gamers even further into the experience. The Division is just one example of this cross-device experiment, and that seems to be something that Microsoft wants to continue to push.
"This connected ecosystem across all the different devices is definitely where I think the future of gaming is going," he continued. "You don't have to do it as a developer, but you have the capability and I think a system like Xbox Live across all those screens where you know who someone is and who their friends are, what their Achievements are and their progression is really critical to that."
We’re not yet sure how it’ll all pan out, but for now, just know that the Xbox One will be launching Nov. 22.
