14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Gaijin Entertainment says that it currently has no plans to launch its War Thunder experience on the Xbox One home console from Microsoft because it is not offering the possibility of cross-platform play with the PC and the PlayStation 4.
Anton Yudintsev, the chief executive officer of the studio, explains to Gamespot that the install base on next-gen consoles is just too small at the moment in order to sustain a multiplayer-focused competitive experience in the long term.
Apparently, Microsoft evaluates all titles it launches on its devices in order to make sure that they offer a good experience for all players, but never tries to find out how developers would want the platform to change in order to better suit their own needs.
The company has suggested that it might introduce cross-platform play between the PC and the Xbox One in the future for a select number of titles, as long as the two groups of players feel they can compete with one another.
Anton Yudintsev also says that Sony is much more open when it comes to indie titles and to free-to-play games, willing to take risks and to back game launches that have not proven their quality yet on another device but could become successful in the long term.
The CEO believes that current strategy at Microsoft “has to change and they will change. The key is that they understand the necessity of change, so they will.”
He adds, “I hope we will be on Xbox One some day as well. I have nothing against the platform itself especially because I’m not one of those guys who worries about which is better. I don’t care. It’s just the hardware. At the end of the day it’s only about the quality of the game and the gameplay experience.”
War Thunder is at the moment available on the PlayStation 4 and cross-play with the PC is currently scheduled to be added to the experience before the end of April.
The Gaijin team is also working on more content updates for the game, designed to keep players engaged in the long term and give them new options for matches and for the evolution of their characters.
Before the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One were announced, both Sony and Microsoft said that they were ready to embrace new business models for games in order to reach a wider potential audience.