Elite Dangerous cross-play, don't blame Sony?

[stormyuk]

The court case between Epic Games and Apple has revealed a whole host of interesting nuggets.

One of the issues it's delved into being cross-play and the internet outrage that Sony has charged Epic games royalties on cross-play for Fortnite.

This article says it all much better than I can but, it's interesting that for a F2P game like Fortnite Sony understandably wants it's price of flesh, when the game is majority played on PS4.

Sony's cross-play deal seems a smart solution to a complex problem | Opinion

It's only been a few days, but the court case between Epic and Apple has already provided a treasure trove of insider i…

www.gamesindustry.biz

What the case and article makes it clear this affects F2P games. Obviously Elite Dangerous isn't F2P.

My feeling is that if FDev wanted to do it, they could. Technically could it be achieved is another issue.

I don't think it's Sony blocking it at all contrary to some of the narrative floating around about cross play with Elite Dangerous.

 

[SCiARA]

it's a strange one, have FDev ever commented on it?

 

[stormyuk]

it's a strange one, have FDev ever commented on it?

'no plans' or 'nothing to announce' ?

 

[SCiARA]

hmm, so frustrating isn't it
I get the impression the game has got too big for the developer, especially for consoles where there's no competition
obviously lockdown doesn't help but you PS guys had problems before then didn't you?

 

[Factabulous]

I'm not sure where they're getting the idea that Sony won't demand payment on non-F2P games - the case is discussing Fortnite - which is F2P, so naturally will mainly discuss those. I think the more relevant part is that Sony wants a cut of the payments Epic gets - and that would map to purchase of ARX in ED.

My main takeaway is that cross-play is not a simple 'press this button and go ahead' - Epic had to negotiate with Sony over individual terms and probably got a better deal that fdev could get for their much smaller number of players. This makes it seem to me like Sony would make crossplay quite a risky thing for fdev to sign up to, kinda like making a deal with this guy:

 

[stormyuk]

The difference while I appreciate ARX complicates matters but with FDev you can't take your cosmetics to other platforms so it's mute. With cross-play they could still enforce that. ARX stays on your home platform. They implement cross-play only, not cross-save.

The big difference is Sony already get a cut out of every sale on the PSN store for Elite Dangerous. They will do the same with Odyssey.

Everyone keeps throwing blockers in the way. I guess we'd have to let FDev tell us what the deal is.

Other non-F2P games are already cross-play.

If FDev were inclined to do it I am sure they could. I don't think Sony are quite as evil empire as you make out.

Besides everyone keeps telling us there is like 0.01% of Elite Dangerous players on PS so Sony probably couldn't care less.

Edit: I should stress I am not actually fussed if FDev do or don't cross-play. I'd much prefer a native PS5 version tbh.

 

[GroG79]

Are ARX for xbox/ps not purchased thru given platforms? And thus a fee for the console builders?

 

[Factabulous]

The difference while I appreciate ARX complicates matters but with FDev you can't take your cosmetics to other platforms so it's mute. With cross-play they could still enforce that. ARX stays on your home platform.

It also depends what people mean by cross-play - I've seen people increasingly want to play their CMDR on their different consoles / PCs - and then you definitely have issues with cosmetics. Looking at the Fortnite case it seems that it has cross-save as well. Maybe you can get away with just cross-play .. not sure.

 

[stormyuk]

Are ARX for xbox/ps not purchased thru given platforms? And thus a fee for the console builders?

Yes, they are. If cross-save was implemented people could buy the cosmetics on any platform which I guess is the issue with Fortnite and potentially Elite Dangerous.

So make it cross-play only. So that we all share the same galaxy together.

It also depends what people mean by cross-play - I've seen people increasingly want to play their CMDR on their different consoles / PCs - and then you definitely have issues with cosmetics. Looking at the Fortnite case it seems that it has cross-save as well. Maybe you can get away with just cross-play .. not sure.

Indeed that's why they could just not implement a cross-save function and just have it cross-play so we all connect to the same game space but are still tied to our respective platforms.

 

[stormyuk]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1391933590833975298

Source: https://twitter.com/pushsquare/status/1391933590833975298?s=19

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

I wondered if someone would post about this. From the little I know, it just convinces me more that there's no reason that Cross Play shouldn't exist for this game.

For the stream with Dav - their Head of Online - Frontier solicited questions beforehand. I asked "What are the technical barriers to implementing a fully shared galaxy via Cross Play?". Of course the question was simply ignored.

Arx are definitely platform specific as I found to my cost when they were first launched; I logged into my PS account on the Frontier Website, purchased Arx and ended up having to get a refund from Frontier.

Destiny seem to manage with MT and Cross Save, though.

Hey ho. Back to holding my breath. sharp intake of breath

 

[tanner1ie]

I wonder does the Xbox and PC exclusivity of the Cobra IV have anything to do with Frontier's seeming reluctance to support crossplay?...

As many new Playstation Elite players might not even be aware that it was even available to unlock as a flyable ship, "back in the day".

Those that see NPCs on Playstation flying them, can dismiss it as a non player ship, but as soon as they'd see certain PC and Xbox players flying it, they'd flood Frontier's support pages asking, "Hey, why can't i get that?!" ....

 

[Scoob101]

The court case between Epic Games and Apple has revealed a whole host of interesting nuggets.

One of the issues it's delved into being cross-play and the internet outrage that Sony has charged Epic games royalties on cross-play for Fortnite.

This article says it all much better than I can but, it's interesting that for a F2P game like Fortnite Sony understandably wants it's price of flesh, when the game is majority played on PS4.

Sony's cross-play deal seems a smart solution to a complex problem | Opinion

It's only been a few days, but the court case between Epic and Apple has already provided a treasure trove of insider i…

www.gamesindustry.biz

What the case and article makes it clear this affects F2P games. Obviously Elite Dangerous isn't F2P.

My feeling is that if FDev wanted to do it, they could. Technically could it be achieved is another issue.

I don't think it's Sony blocking it at all contrary to some of the narrative floating around about cross play with Elite Dangerous.

Doesn't the game operate a p2p arrangement for multiplayer?

Do any other p2p games support Cross play?

If no, that might be the end of it right there.

 

[stormyuk]

Doesn't the game operate a p2p arrangement for multiplayer?

Do any other p2p games support Cross play?

If no, that might be the end of it right there.

It's a fair point. I don't think p2p cross play is impossible but, it's probably a much bigger challenge.

To be honest even on a single platform Elite Dangerous p2p performance can be good but, can be also be absolutely atrocious.

It's probably better that it's not inflicted on us with multiple platforms and even more lag!

 

[Scoob101]

I don't think it's Sony blocking it at all contrary to some of the narrative floating around about cross play with Elite Dangerous.

Technical considerations (which may be significant, we don't know for sure) aside, it's never going to be in Sonys best interests to allow cross-play freely and without friction across its games catalogue.

You really cannot blame Sony for protecting its interests in this way, it really is basic common sense to retain and protect arguably the second biggest reason to buy a Playstation after exclusive content (i.e. I want to play multiplayer with my PlayStation friends).

The commercials will always trump the marketing "For the players " nonsense.

 

[Scoob101]

It's a fair point. I don't think p2p cross play is impossible but, it's probably a much bigger challenge.

To be honest even on a single platform Elite Dangerous p2p performance can be good but, can be also be absolutely atrocious.

It's probably better that it's not inflicted on us with multiple platforms and even more lag!

A quick google found this::

Tips for developers making a cross-platform game

It wasn't all that long ago that developers were lamenting the stubbornness of certain platform holders over allowing c…

www.gamesindustry.biz

"When you want your clients to connect to the other players to play, I would suggest not going with the direct peer-to-peer route. Especially due to the fact that you cannot use the built-in platform libraries, like the Xbox secure device associations, it gets pretty hairy especially when we're talking about console connecting to PC. I would suggest going with either a data-gated server, or use some kind of relay server assisted peer-to-peer to build your mesh."

 

[Northpin]

One other fair points it the plain old cheating

Both PSN and XB Live are curated network environments. Both consoles are running protected software.
Cheating is not really possible on these platforms since both companies will be able to remove the consoles involved in cheating from the multiplayer network and/or completely brick the consoles.

Sure, one may say that giving players the option to chose is the way... but people are known for making the wrong choices then blaming others for that.
So why bother in the first place?

However, this might be only tertiary or even lower than that, main things are probably a combination of protecting own interests and interfacing with other external networks (both as costs and tech difficulties)

 

[Scoob101]

My main takeaway is that cross-play is not a simple 'press this button and go ahead'

Precisely. You have two major hurdles to overcome, one technical and the other commercial - and the commercial one is arguably way more difficult.

Gaming and tech Blogs on the internet have done gamers a disservice by presenting this topic like it's a problem that's been solved already. It hasn't - and I question if it ever can be.

 

[amigacooke]

I assume we're all going to be blaming Apple (and TJ) for old times sake?

Though of course macOS commanders are the only happy band to have fully shared the galaxy with Windows users.

 

[tanner1ie]

It's a fair point. I don't think p2p cross play is impossible but, it's probably a much bigger challenge.

To be honest even on a single platform Elite Dangerous p2p performance can be good but, can be also be absolutely atrocious.

It's probably better that it's not inflicted on us with multiple platforms and even more lag!

While i don't know for certain, i reckon Need for Speed: Heat is a peer to peer game (surely any game with passive connection to players, where they just "show up" in your vicinity is using it, which they do in Heat).

They added crossplay between Playstation, Xbox and PC in the games' last update and it just, works ...

I haven't really played the game since, as its' story missions just end very abruptly, giving you little motivation to keep playing and i'd just finished the story around the time the patch came out (2015's Need for Speed had much more story content and was much better paced - pity that game never got a direct sequel ).

Anyway from what i can remember, you're given a choice whether to activate crossplay, whether to connect to Xbox only or PC and Xbox and change your choices again at any time.

I'd imagine crossplay in Elite would be very similar .