Ripstone says Nintendo has been changing tech policies more swiftly, Pure Chess on Wii U/3DS could support cross-play with PlayStation platforms
Eurogamer recently caught up with Phil Gaskell, creative director and co-founder of Ripstone. Gaskell shared some insight into the company’s relationship with Nintendo and noted how the Big N has been “a lot swifter” in changing its technical policies.
Specifically, Ripstone was told very quickly that cross-play is supported – even with non-Nintendo systems. Therefore Wii U and 3DS owners will be able to play Pure Chess with iOS and Android users online. Ripstone is also looking into the possibility of supporting the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita with cross-play.
According to Gaskell:
“They’ve been quiet, but they’ve not been idle at all. We’ve been having similar conversations with them. They’re changing their policies on the technical side a lot swifter. We’re launching Pure Chess and Knytt Underground later this year, and on Pure Chess we asked whether we could do cross-platform multiplayer, expecting it to be the typical closed console platform I’ve been used to working with for 20 years. Within a couple of days they said, ‘yep, no problem. You can have other console players playing against Wii U players. You can have smartphone players play against them. No problem.’
“We’re still talking to Sony about them relaxing their policies, but we don’t think they’ll have any issue with it. So when we launch Pure Chess you’ll be able to play against Wii U, 3DS, iOS and Android players. And when we patch PlayStation those consoles will be added into the mix as well.”
