It seems like everyone is up in everyone else’s business these days and Xbox wants to make it clear that they are laughing out loud at Sony’s recent statement regarding cross-play. Yesterday Sony’s CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida spoke up about the whole lack of cross-play on PS4 and why the company refused to work with other consoles to bring them all together online.

Basically, Sony’s mentality is that PlayStation is the “best place to play” so the lack of cross-play between them, Xbox One and Nintendo does not phase them because they offer the best gaming experience on the market. While I do agree with them, it is a bit of backwards thinking. However, Sony thinks that the competition between Microsoft and Nintendo is in a healthy state so why change that?

Of course, Microsoft wanted the final say in the matter and they decided to chirp Sony. Lead Xbox Engineer Mike Ybarra said on Twitter that Sony is still not listening to gamers about the cross-play situation. He tweeted “All games should be cross-play and progression with the right input flexibility and gamer options”. Someone decided to point out that while Microsoft may be for cross-play, Sony has still steamrolled Xbox when it comes to console sales. Ybarra said “We run Windows and Console. Larger gaming audience who wants to play together. Gaming is diverse, if you only serve to bring joy to part of an audience then you are behind in many, many ways”. 

Microsoft’s stand on cross-play could be the main reason why Xbox One sales are so low. Why buy an Xbox One when you can build a PC and play the same games? In a way, it is the dream set up to have cross-play but it too has had a negative impact on Microsoft’s console push.

Microsoft loves cross-play and Sony does not. It works for one and not for the other. Guess we are going to have to start dealing with it.