The GDC 2019 scheduling website has revealed that Xbox Live is coming to Nintendo Switch and smartphones using a new development platform. [Thanks, Windows Central!]
In the talk presented by Microsoft, titled ‘Xbox Live: Growing & Engaging Your Gaming Community Across Platforms’, they are set to show off the new development platform that is able to bring Xbox Live to Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android devices.
Here’s Microsoft’s description of the talk below:
Xbox Live is one of the largest, most engaged gaming communities on the planet with decades of experience providing managed game services to developers that save you time and unlock all of the social and engagement features that players love.
Now Xbox Live is about to get MUCH bigger. Xbox Live is expanding from 400M gaming devices and a reach to over 68M active players to over 2B devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK.
Get a first look at the SDK to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs.
Takeaway
- Xbox Live players are highly engaged and active on Xbox and PC, but now they can take their gaming achievement history, their friends list, their clubs, and more with them to almost every screen.
- This will break down barriers for developers that want their communities to mingle more freely across platforms. Combined with PlayFab gaming services, this means less work for game developers and more time to focus on making games fun.
In short, the new platform will allow developers to add Xbox Live support for Switch and smart devices in games more easily, outside of games like Minecraft and Rocket League that currently support cross-platform play.
