At this year’s GDC in San Francisco CA, Chris Charla - Director of ID@Xbox - spoke of an exciting new feature heading to the Xbox One/Windows 10 platforms. Namely Cross-Network Play support?
Cross-Network Play
In addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, Microsoft are also allowing developers the option to support cross-network play as well. In English this means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.
Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. The first game that will support this feature is Psyonix’s Rocket League; by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well.
ID@Xbox on Windows 10
Last year at GDC Microsoft announced that they would be extending ID@Xbox to Windows 10; to support developers who want to include Xbox Live in their Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games. You can already play some of these games from ID@Xbox developers on Windows 10 i.e. Oxenfree, Pinball FX 2, Fire: Ungh’s Quest and Stealth Inc 2, and Microsoft are excited that hundreds of developers have committed to shipping on Windows 10 with Xbox Live.
The first titles with cross-play between Xbox One and Windows will be coming soon.