It’s not been a great week for cross-platform titles, has it? Fortnite on Nintendo Switch should have been a great thing, but the folks over at PlayStation had other ideas. To be fair, we say it’s not been a great week, but the Switch, Xbox One and PC all get along famously. It would be a nicer world if more games offered cross-platform play, and EA think so too. FIFA cross-play might one day be a possibility.
Indeed, EA have been discussing the possibility of FIFA 19 cross-platform play. The company claim that such a move would be a “net benefit to users”. While EA would like to make FIFA 19 cross-platform play a reality, it does realize that there are “issues” (Sony) to work through with the first-party companies.
FIFA 19 Cross-Platform Play, Could it Happen?
As it stands, FIFA doesn’t let us use one account across platforms. If you owned the game on PS4 and Switch, for example, you don’t share anything – meaning your Ultimate Team must be re-done on each console you own the game on. A FIFA 19 cross-platform Ultimate Team experience would be ace. EA agree, and the creative director of FIFA Matt Prior told Eurogamer that EA has been looking into it.
“It’s something we’ve looked at, and it’s something we often talk about”, says Prior. “There are a lot of issues to work through. I’m trying to be diplomatic here! There are a lot of issues to work through with various first parties. But Fortnite does that now with PC to consoles.”
Without pointing any fingers, these “issues” that Prior mentions are undoubtedly aimed towards Sony. They messed up the Fortnite Switch launch and won’t allow cross-platform play with anything other than PC. Cross-platform play is something the consumer wants these days, and Prior acknowledges this.
“From a consumer standpoint, it makes the community that much broader, which makes it that much more compelling.”
Before we get our collective hopes up, however, Prior stops short of confirming FIFA 19 cross-platform play:
“It’s something we’re aware of… I’m not making any promises. But you’ve seen that [cross-platform play] happen for the first time very recently. If you’d asked me that a few years ago I’d probably have said, ‘it’s not going to happen. We’ll monitor and see.’ I think it would be a net benefit to the users. One day!”
For now, we’ll have to make do with playing FIFA 19 with fellow Xbox One, PS4, Switch and PC players respectively. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be chopping and changing our Ultimate Team on the go on our Switch and taking it on the world stage at home on our PS4 anytime soon.
