PUBG is has been performing phenomenally on the PC. With the game continuing to shatter records showing no signs of slowdown since its launch six months ago, Microsoft actually planned to make PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds an Xbox One exclusive. Therefore, the game would be arriving on Microsoft’s family of Xbox One devices.
At E3 2017, Microsoft announced that PUBG would be making it to Microsoft’s Xbox family of devices due to its amazing popularity. With the team at Bluehole now taking the Xbox One X into account, there’s a lot they have promised that have to be fulfilled early next year. With the game selling over 10M units on the PC as of last week, PUBG may most likely enjoy just as much success on the Xbox One. But, what if Microsoft enables cross-play? Would that be another major success factor? Let’s talk about it.
One of the major things that PC gamers have been enjoying is the use of mice or keyboards which gives them the competitive advantage over controllers naturally. Now while this may look as a disadvantage to many uninformed players of the game, Microsoft actually intends to add support to use keyboards and mice on the Xbox One family of devices.
PUBG being the prime example, Matt Brown from Windows Central reported that the Xbox version of the title does not come with any form of aim-assistance. Now, while this may be quite challenging for Xbox One players, it actually means a ton lot in the eSports genre where PUBG is starting to expand into. Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra also chimed in onto the matter revealing how they intend to balance and cater users with mice and keyboards. He said that the choice to support PC peripherals and properly enable them is solely up to the developers, which makes complete sense. On top of that, Mike Ybarra also commented on how Xbox One titles that do intend to use keyboards would actually feature options to allow Xbox One players to choose which players they want to play with. It’s up to these players to choose whether they want to play with keyboard and mice players or if they want to play with controller players only. This is crucial, as controller players would actually have the option to choose between which players they want to play with in normal matchmaking situations.
While the devs or Microsoft haven’t commented on their cross-play plans with PUBG as much, it’s an interesting discussion to come up with, if Microsoft intends to enable cross-play between PC and Xbox One PUBG players. This is indeed one of the titles that have taken the masses by storm and if the developers implement the controls well, PUBG would definitely win a ton of hearts.
While the game might get the controls right, it seems like an excellent chance for PC Keyboard and Mice manufacturers to chime-in at a time where RGB Mechanical keyboards are all the craze in the PC world. If Xbox gamers take this seriously, I am super intrigued to check out the sales figures rise. Although we should also consider that PUBG and FPS titles don’t satisfy every player’s taste which is the whole point of getting PC peripherals.
However, if Bluehole, the developers of PUBG, add options for users to filter out controllers and inputs, I wonder how many players would be available to play with after filtering between controller or keyboard and mouse players.
If Bluehole has though about all of these concerns, it seems like they’ll be completely ready for this or just completely disable cross-play all together. With 10M players adding the game into their libraries, it doesn’t seem bad to find Xbox One gamers in your lobbies. Indeed a crucial title that if pulled off could really show off the potential of Microsoft’s Play Anywhere program.
I think that is arises an interesting discussion. We would like to hear from you guys what do you guys this about PUBG with crossplay.
