Since the beginning of time (or somewhere thereabouts) mankind has been divided by two groups at war with one another, PC gamers and console gamers. Calls for peace between the two have largely gone ignored, and though it has mostly been a war of words and snarky memes, every so often a compatible battlefield emerges for an actual skirmish. Now is one of those times—Microsoft just added cross-platform multiplayer to Gears of War 4 in Social Quickplay. Let the brawling begin.
The addition of cross-play allows gamers on the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs to face off with another in Gear of War 4’s Versus Mulitplayer mode. Microsoft has been wanting to do this since last year when it tested the waters during a cross-play weekend that was open to the public. Based on the feedback it received from gamers and its own data gathering, Microsoft decided to move forward with a full roll-out.
“Beginning today, Social Quickplay will now be a cross-play playlist! This step is planned to be a permanent move for the future of Social Quickplay, with the first few months being a ‘trial period’ in order to monitor player feedback alongside data to ensure the Test Weekend was representative,” Microsoft stated in a blog post.
Making this a permanent thing should provide Microsoft with oodles of data that it can use to improve the cross-platform multiplayer experience, not just for Gears of War 4 but also other potential games that it might be considering. Here is a look at the data Microsoft already scooped up just from last year’s test weekend alone:
- Over 750,000 matches played
- Over 115,000 unique participants – 91/9 split from Xbox to Windows 10
- Average of 6.2 matches played by Xbox users, with 11.2 for Windows 10 users
- Over 90 percent of all matches during the weekend included a mix of Windows 10 and Xbox One players
- Windows 10 and Xbox players had closely-matched results when comparing average KD, Score and Kills per match based on skill ratings
- The quality of matches improved for both Xbox and Windows 10 users – social lobbies had a higher average user count, and players completed 95 percent of all social matches entered vs 90 percent prior to Cross-play Weekend
Obviously the demand is there for Xbox One and Windows PC players to duke it out with one another, and it’s also nice to see that almost every social match played through to the end, even more so than when cross-play isn’t featured.
At least for now, Microsoft is limiting cross-play to Gear of War 4’s Versus Multiplayer mode—Core and Competitive modes will remain platform independent. However, since cross-play has proved so popular Microsoft said it will be looking at introducing new Core and Competitive solutions for Windows 10 players in the future.
Read more at http://hothardware.com/news/gears-of-war-4-crossplay-windows-10-gamers-versus-xbox-one-players#91LCxFxQibTCP6bj.99
Source by Paul Lilly
