: Pretty sure the numbers were crunched long ago, as Playstation has supported
: cross-plat since the PS2 days. At launch, there were already Cross-plat
: games on PS4, such as War Thunder, and for the briefest of moments,
: account sharing on Warframe (Update versions made that impossible after a
: while, but DE hopes to bring something like that back). Heck, Rocket
: League had PC cross-play since the day it launched as a free game on PS4.

: Since PS4 sales are over 2:1 of Xbone sales, Cross-plat gameplay has zero
: benefit for Sony. They have the bigger populations across the board, and
: no Windows-10 requirement. Xbone, as the more historically restrictive
: platform (one of the reasons that FF XIV and War Thunder devs refused to
: launch on Xbone), needs cross-plat for its games to have significant
: populations (especially at launch), and in order to sway folks thinking of
: going over to PS4.

: I'd love console cross-play, but the smart thing for Sony to do is to ignore
: the pleas. They've already won.

: That said, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they allowed it for a few
: non-AAA games, but that alone would cause countless issues in terms of UI,
: security, etc...

You're showing quite a bit of bias here (as you usually do). Based on sales, Sony is doing much better this console "cycle" (another term that is destined to change to reflect an upgrade path more familiar to PCs and mobile devices) but don't forget that they had to learn those lessons the hard way due to the success of the 360, and the infrastructure of XBL.

This isn't to say that Micorsoft isn't making their own mistakes and learning hard lessons this "cycle"- indeed it's interesting to look how the power dynamic has ebbed and flowed since the last few generations.

* The PS2 was (and is, for now) the best selling console of all time compared to the gamecube and OG Xbox; of which introduced a successful online gaming subscriptions service with Mech Assault and a few other titles. Microsoft continued to capitalize on this until it exploded with Halo 2, setting the stage for the next race

* The PS3 release to great fanfare, but is bloated. Over priced. Sony expected a no-contest win based on the popularity of the PS2. The 360 and XBL crushed the PS3 and PSN to the point where Sony had to make their online service free to remain competitive and had to slash the price of their console at a loss (which is similar to what MS ended up doing this cycle with the XB1 and Kinnect, irony not being lost). I won't even go into Nintendo for this discussion. The 360 dominated that cycle. It had the killer games and exclusives and the infrastructure to support it. XBL was superior to PSN in every way, and was a good example of "you get what you pay for", especially when the data breach of PSN occurred and Sony had to yet again, offer more free content at a loss to make up for it.

* The XB1 release shows the tables turn, and MS commits the same mistakes that Sony did in the previous gen. They expected the XB1 to be a shoe in. Bloated console. Bloated price. Bad marketing. The loss of Bungie's Halo, the hype that was Destiny being "designed for the PS4". This is also the point in time where Sony changed PSN from included free to a payed subscription, having learned from their past mistakes with the PS3. PSN has gotten much better in quality, uptime, and services offered, whereas XBL still has the same quality it always did but is marred by a bad dashboard and interface designed to mirror Win8.

What I'm getting at korny, is that nothing is set in stone, and the "lead" can change at any moment.

"They've [Sony] already won" - won what, exactly?And for how long?

What's the next battlefield? The next must-have feature?

The landscape of gaming is changing. We saw for a time, Nintendo give both consoles a run for their money, to the point where they both invested in motion gaming as the next big thing- but that fad passed. (It remains to be seen if this will take off with mobile and VR, but that's for another time).

PC gaming is getting better. MS has a presence there as the most popular OS. Cross play between XB and PC is destined to happen. It's not going to be a smooth road, but they're doing it. What is Sony doing in this respect?

There's a lot of politics between each camp saying "Yeah we've always been for cross play but it's up to the other guy" finger pointing. And that's all it is. Sony isn't Bernie Sanders, dude. At the end of the day, these are major corporations. Sony has much more to lose in the long run if it doesn't play it's cards right when it comes to cross play.

I mean, if they don't find a way to work well together, Pokemon go could destroy them all :P