According to Knytt Underground developer Ripstone, Nintendo has given permission for cross-platform play between the Wii U and other consoles.
The news comes via a feature published on Eurogamer about the state of indie gaming; in it, Ripstone creative director and co-founder Phil Gaskell said Nintendo was quick to agree to its request to implement cross-play.
“We’re launching Pure Chess and Knytt Underground later this year, and on Pure Chess we asked whether we could do cross-platform multiplayer, expecting it to be the typical closed console platform I’ve been used to working with for 20 years,” he said.
“Within a couple of days they said, ‘yep, no problem. You can have other console players playing against Wii U players. You can have smartphone players play against them. No problem.'”
Gaskell said the feature isn’t yet locked in for Pure Chess as Sony still has to agree, but that he anticipates no problems.
“We’re still talking to Sony about them relaxing their policies, but we don’t think they’ll have any issue with it. So when we launch Pure Chess you’ll be able to play against Wii U, 3DS, iOS and Android players. And when we patch PlayStation those consoles will be added into the mix as well,” he explained.
The developer had only good things to say about Nintendo’s approach to indies, too, saying that the platform holder has been “quiet” in its approach to the independent community, but has “not been idle”.
“They’re changing their policies on the technical side a lot swifter,” he added.
Nintendo has already given permission for Cubemen 2 to implement cross-play between the Wii U and and iOS, Linux, Mac and PC versions, but this seems to be the first time it’s hinted at cross-play with rival consoles. We’ve asked Nintendo for confirmation of the news.
Traditionally, console manufacturers do not allow cross-platform play between each other’s systems, although Sony has been more and more open about cross-play with most other platforms and Microsoft is cautiously exploring mobile connectivity.
Thanks, Cybermarco.
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