Nintendo are living in the past. Nintendo need to update their policies. Nintendo are for kids. Etcetera, etcetera.
Nintendo have taken a lot of flak in the past for being “behind”, and to a certain extent I’d have to agree. We all want unified account systems across 3DS and Wii U, and we want any digital games purchased to be tied to those accounts.
But today, Nintendo reveals they’re not as behind as others insinuate.
In a conversation with Eurogamer, Phil Gaskill from Ripstone told of one policy that Nintendo is ahead of the times on;
“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.”
“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.’”
“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.”
Out of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, the only company refusing to connect multiplayer between consoles is now Microsoft.
Cross-platform connectivity isn’t a big deal for everyone, but if Microsoft were a bit more liberal, perhaps the Xbox 360 would’ve had Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn as well as PS3 and PC.
