Will PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds ever make it to PlayStation? That has been the question on everyone’s minds ever since Microsoft announced earlier this year that it has secured some form of exclusivity on what might be the biggest game of the year. What is the extent of that exclusivity? Is it temporary or permanent? Console exclusivity? No exclusivity at all, beyond the happy accident of PS4 not having an Early Access program?
It sounds like, for the time being, a PS4 version of the game is not in the works. Speaking in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene said that the small development team of the game is currently focused on the PC and Xbox versions.
“This is just, as I keep saying, our team size is just so limited at the moment. We can only focus on PC and Xbox. We just don’t have the time, and Xbox has the Preview Program, which allows us to – like Early Access – develop the game with the players. That’s where our focus is right now, and we just want to make the best version of the game for both of those platforms,” he said.
Greene also revealed that cross platform play between the Xbox and PC versions of the game is currently under consideration- if not necessarily something they have committed to. “We’re looking into it. We’d like to see some form of cross-play, but we think it would only be fair if it was keyboard and mouse versus keyboard and mouse, or controller versus controller. But it’s still under heavy discussion.”
Which makes sense- it’s a hard game, and keyboard and mouse users would be at a dreadful advantage against console players. Whatever the implementation ends up being, we can only hope that it will be fair. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is available now on PC, and it is due to launch on Xbox One by the end of the year.