Your favorite Yeti Winston skin will not be available to you when Overwatch launches on the Switch next month, Blizzard has just confirmed in a statement regarding crossplay between multiple platforms.
The full statement from Blizzard reads: “We’ve seen how compelling cross-system play can be for our community, and we’re excited about the potential. There’s still a lot of work to do on both our side and the platforms’ side to determine whether this is something that makes sense for Overwatch, and we’re keeping an eye on how crossplay systems and technology develop.”
The foremost argument for crossplay between consoles is that this would make cross-platform accounts viable. As urrently, an Xbox Overwatch player can’t play against a PC user, it doesn’t make logical sense for a player who plays on both platforms to utilize one account for both, given the different conditions inherent in playing on Xbox versus PC. If matches between Xbox and PC players were possible, there’s no reason hard-earned cosmetics couldn’t be available on both platforms through one account as they are on games like Fortnite.
Plus, as it stands, when Overwatch releases on the Switch, players new to the game will be thrown in with veterans who will also be starting from scratch on a new system. MMR will ideally sort out the veterans from the noobs, but this is still less than ideal.
However, the biggest argument against crossplay is that players on certain platforms are inherently at a disadvantage. Undocked Overwatch on the Switch will run at considerably lower specs than its PS4 and Xbox counterparts, while players across all consoles are generally considered to be at a disadvantage due to control stick aiming being less accurate than mouse aiming on the PC.
The most obvious workaround to this would be to allow for noncompetitive Quick Play matches between platforms. This way friends with different versions of Overwatch would be able to play with one another, while relegating competitive matches solely to players on the same platform. Ideally, that would prevent console disadvantages from factoring into matches that affect competitive rankings.
“Papa” Jeff Kaplan himself has expressed a desire to, at the very least, allow skins to be transferable between platforms. While Blizzard’s latest statement doesn’t make the possibility of crossplay sound promising, it’s not completely out of the question. For now, Yeti Winston on the Switch will have to wait until December, should the RNG gods be in your favor.
Source: Engadget
