Cross platform?

[Domshmoe]

I’ve had this game since 2018 on the Nintendo switch and I remember waiting for multiplayer for so long and once it came out it was amazing, but soon I got a pc and don’t have my switch and my brother still has a switch and isn’t able to play with me. Is it too difficult to create cross platform? How does Minecraft do cross platform?

 

[Lew Zealand]

Minecraft is a great example as MC Bedrock uses the same codebase across all the platforms it supports which is why all Bedrock-based MC is crossplay. Except Minecraft has an older, original, and concurrently developed codebase in the Java version of the game. And all Java is cross platform with other Java.

But Bedrock and Java are not cross-platform with each other because they are completely different codebases. And Stardew has the same problem where the limitations of ?? (codebase, manpower, mobile vs Nintendo vs PC/Mac?) result in different game code and therefore no crossplay between some devices. And no network play at all for mobile.

 

[Odin]

How does Minecraft do cross platform?

The short answer is that they're a company of about 600 and have the backing of Microsoft as a parent company. There are far fewer developers that work on Stardew (1-3 depending on the update, plus additional work from other companies on the console and mobile ports).

One thing that crossplay requires is that updates for the game need to be synced between platforms much more closely. When Minecraft puts out a new update, it has to be ready on every platform that supports crossplay and released at the same time, otherwise it would break crossplay. My assumption is that because Minecraft has more developers they can work on updates on multiple platforms in parallel, making this system possible without increasing developement time between updates.

Stardew's current release schedule where Windows, Mac, and Linux get updates first followed by the consoles would mean crossplay would be broken for a period of time. The PC/Mac version of the game could be held back until all the console version were ready to avoid that issue, but it would delay updates for anyone on those platforms. And switching to a system where all the versions are developed in parallel would be, I assume, more expensive.

 

[Lunarwolf]

definitely. my brother plays on pc and im on switch and i would love to play but nether of us wants to for over the money for the same version as the other

 

[SofiaHodge]

I also had this game, my brother gave it to me.

 

[stardrop_patrick]

factorio supports crossplay and its developer is quite a small team. It’s certainly doable.