2020 has been an important year for video games, and not just because we weren’t supposed to leave the house. There were two major console launches—the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X—as well as big titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Final Fantasy VII remake, and Cyberpunk 2077. And what’s also interesting is that the three big game console makers — Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony — have teamed together to commit to making gaming safer for everyone.
This comes via a post from Microsoft on its Xbox Wire site, where it states;
“At Xbox, we are aligned with both Nintendo, on behalf of the community of Nintendo Switch players, and PlayStation in our belief that protecting players online requires a multidisciplinary approach — one that combines the benefits of advanced technology, a supportive community, and skilled human oversight. We can accomplish more when we work toward the same goal, and so we will each continue investing in, evolving, and amplifying our approaches to user safety.”
Microsoft highlights three key principles.
- Prevention (giving players and parents the tools and options to help avoid harassment and toxicity before it can happen).
- Partnership (working with industry trade organizations, industry members, regulators, law enforcement, and experts to make online gaming experiences safer).
- Responsibility (all companies hold themselves accountable for creating safe gaming experiences).
The principles have been published as increasing numbers of games, like Fortnite, Rocket League, and Apex Legends, are offering crossplay among the different platforms, allowing gamers to play together regardless of which hardware they’re using. However, the feature could cause problems if each platform’s rules are enforced differently. The new principles should help each console manufacturer follow similar approaches to keeping players safe.
In the past, Sony has cited potential differences like these as the reason for not allowing PS4 gamers to play against other consoles. Back in 2017, PlayStation global sales and marketing head Jim Ryan told Eurogamer that the reason the company wasn’t supporting crossplay in Rocket League or Fortnite was that the company didn’t want to expose its players to online environments outside of its control.
“We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe,” Ryan said. “Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it’s something we have to think about very carefully.”
Sony later walked back its position, and allowed for crossplay between consoles in the two games. It has allowed other games on its platform to support the feature since then.
The new principles come under three main categories; prevention, partnership, and responsibility. Prevention covers allowing players to customize their privacy controls, to promote the existence of these options and make them easy to use. Partnership, meanwhile, includes pledges to cooperate with other organizations and ratings agencies on safety initiatives. Finally, responsibility includes a commitment to be transparent about rules, and to make it easy for players to report when people break the rules.
These three game companies Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are rivals, but the console war tensions aren’t what they used to be. The industry has grown since those bitter days of the Sega/Nintendo feuds of the ’90s. The market is capable of supporting all three companies and their consoles, along with robust PC and mobile gaming markets. That has made cooperation — including cross-platform play — possible these days.
Xbox notes;
“Protecting players can be challenging in a digitally and often instantaneously connected world. This partnership signifies our commitment to work together to improve player safety and ensure gaming remains truly for everyone. While the video game industry has a long history of taking steps to protect gamers, especially children, we recognize that no one company or industry will solve these challenges alone. We welcome others to make and share similar commitments to players everywhere.”
