Il boss di Xbox Phil Spencer vuole i ban degli utenti multipiattaforma

Sembra normale ora, ma non devi andare troppo indietro per arrivare a un momento in cui il concetto di cross-play – multiplayer online su diverse piattaforme – era fantasioso. Ogni console, PC e piattaforma mobile operavano nella propria bolla, dividere le basi di utenti e le comunità di gioco.

L'enorme crescita del multiplayer online, e soprattutto free-to-play, ha aperto il cross-play come caratteristica relativamente comune. Titoli che lo supportano su Switch, per esempio, Martin Luther King Jr Rocket League e Città a eliminazione diretta.

Mentre i titolari di piattaforme hanno gradualmente aperto le loro reti a questo, le barriere esistono ancora in termini di dati degli utenti e, by extension, divieti e blocchi utente. Se giochi a un gioco multipiattaforma e ti trovi di fronte a un giocatore violento, blocking them on one system won’t necessarily work elsewhere.

As part of a wide-ranging interview with Il New York Times (paywall) (via Eurogamer), Xbox boss Phil Spencer highlighted cross-platform user bans and blocks as something on his wishlist, albeit acknowledging that it wouldn’t be easy to implement.

Something I would love us to be able to do – this is a hard one as an industry – is when somebody gets banned in one of our networks, is there a way for us to ban them across other networks?

[mi piacerebbe] be able to bring my banned user list… to other networks where I play. So ‘this is the group of people that I choose not to play with’. Because I don’t want to have to recreate that in every platform that I play video games on.

While it’s tempting to simply say it won’t happen, as mentioned before we now take for granted what was previously unprecedented co-operation and cross-play between platforms. Whether the major platform-holders could agree to sharing and maintaining a combined user-list, and navigate the various legal requirements, would be interesting to see.

We’ll see whether the idea ever picks up steam – in the meantime share your thoughts on it, come sempre, nei commenti.