In recent times, Xbox has been a major part of cross-platform play becoming more of a standard. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Xbox, has made it no secret that he wants to see gamers across all consoles, whether it's Nintendo, Sony, PC, or Xbox, all play together. However, online play isn't the only thing he might want the platforms to share. In an interview with the New York Times, Phil Spencer discussed the concept of the "metaverse" and toxic communities in the gaming space.

In regards to harassment, Spencer had an idea for a solution: cross-platform bans. He noted that it would be difficult to pull off, but having players be banned from one service and then subsequently others, would reduce bad behavior online.

Something I would love us to be able to do--this is a hard one as an industry--is when somebody gets banned in one of our networks, is there a way for us to ban them across other networks?

A secondary concept he considered was having a "blocked user list" that would carry over from Xbox Live to PlayStation Network, and everything in between, easily allowing for users to avoid harassment across all platforms. Currently, Microsoft is working on an AI that can monitor game chats, and can even detect when conversations begin to "get to a destructive point".

Source

 

[Viri]

There is not even cross platform *gaming* for all games available.
Maybe focus on the fun things first, hu?

We're gonna get the Deus Ex future, but without the cool augs part.

 

[I_AM_L_FORCE]

good ban all toxic players. good riddance.

You wouldn't happen to be being toxic, would you now?

 

[JFizDaWiz]

[redacted]

 

[Digital_Cheese]

This does not seem good at all. So basically, I can say something bahd and now if I am not very careful with online, assuming we used basic stuff (and didn't count weirder sites), I would be banned from:

Twitter
YouTube (at least my main)
GBATemp (maybe)
Reddit (at least main)
Discord (at least my main)
Roblox
GitHub
Playstation Network
Xbox Live
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo Network (only if your NNID gets banned when your switch gets banned)

And probably a few others. I can see an option to have a blocklist that affects the harasser across all platforms (great idea if they are too stupid to use alt accounts or even an IP block) but I believe that getting banned cross platform is bad. In a game like Fortnite, if you use the same account it is kinda expected. If they also check emails though, I am screwed. Good on paper, bad in practice.

Also, odds are nobody is actually going to check these (I'd argue most if not all "humans" doing so are bots) so basically no ban recovery. Like do they want to have to hire 1000s of people just to check bans all day? Even then, what's so bad about an argument especially when Microsoft even allows making a club with trash-talking allowed? I can see if it goes from just derogatory stuff in a single argument to constant attacking in other places, but odds are (especially with 8 year olds and snowflakes), they will get offended and decide to report because why wouldn't they? Yeah, that will make future consoles be hated badly. Basically, I hope they don't do this.

 

[ChiefReginod]

Eventually we'll be banned from grocery stores for saying something "wrong" online. What a dystopic future.

 

[BitMasterPlus]

wouldn't be for it if I was

Your South Park avatar doesn't help you tho lol jk

 

[Megadriver94]

good ban all toxic players. good riddance.

How do you even objectively define what is "toxic" and what is not, in this sense, though? This is almost as bad as the Mass banning by the lying assholes and often self-absorbed, power-tripping and high on their own farts mod team and Admins of Facebook and Twitter with their banning of people on their platforms for what they see as wrongthink. They truly have too much power, and so do Amazon, Google, MS, and Apple. Big tech, especially these days, don't really have your best interest in mind. There is a clear line between a publisher and a platform. At the end of the day words are words, they are not (at least not typically) capable of injuring or killing you. Really, you and ChibiMofo are highly delusional fools and goons who behave like communists in training. Case in point:

It sounds like you have some deviant ideas about what constitutes "having fun." Are you blissfully unaware of the harassments, or are you one of the harassers?

>Your rights end where my feelings begin
>BOO HOO HATE SPEECH, ADL AND PHIL SPENCER HELP ME! ;_;
>Deviant ideas
Ah, yes, the "Say shit I don't like get hit with a ban" mentality. Yes, I do know of harassments for sure, I myself have been a target of some in the past on different websites from time to time. However, white knighting is not the answer, nor is having people be spied on and later having said personal data sold a la Twitter, Facebook, and similarly, Google. Enjoy living in a Twitterite bubble.

 

[KennyAtom]

To be honest, this seems like another step towards the whole world becoming China in policing of the state.

"Say something I disagree with? Oops, now you can't play at all" can easily lead to "Oh you disagreed with the government? Have fun getting executed and/or forced to work for 21 hours a day in one of our many labour camps"

Thank god this is just a idea, and not something that Nintendo, Valve, and Sony are willing to go through with. (Although Nintendo seems like the kind of company to actually go through with this, considering their lovey dovey relationship with Microsoft after the Switch came out.)

 

[sley]

Imagine getting a ban on ps5 because of a modded animal crossing island

 

[godreborn]

the irony is that the microphone for the controller is on by default with the ps5, but I don't think it is on the series x, so I wonder what they're possibly listening in on for?

 

[subcon959]

Yet, everyone is happily marching towards digital-only gaming. At least with physical they can't stop you playing what you paid for.

 

[godreborn]

this doesn't bother me all that much, since I'm not going to be hacking any new consoles, and I don't really play against others online. I don't game enough to be good enough at those sorts of games. anyway, I cancelled my disc version of legacy of thieves and bought the digital version. I figured, since I'm all digital on the switch, and so far on the series x, might as well be that way with the ps5. maybe it's due to my own laziness of swapping discs? lol

 

[Deleted member 577889]

And no company wants to employ humans for moderation for various reasons (mostly greed). They also love having bans be 100% irrevocable as it simplifies things for them.

Anyone who supports this in any capacity should be forced to experience an automated "no-reason" Google account ban first hand and be forced to go through the process of attempting to appeal it.

I got banned on Sony support chat after asking for "too many refunds". So, I asked them to refund me one purchase, then another... thing is, both purchases were made within 2 weeks and had no play time. And yet they still banned me for ASKING if a refund is possible.

I had an issue with a controller the other day and I couldn't contact them for a repair through the chat. Had to call them..

Yet, everyone is happily marching towards digital-only gaming. At least with physical they can't stop you playing what you paid for.

hurricane can stop you from being able to access all your physical games disc aging, console death, etc... lots of reasons.

 

[bobmcjr]

hurricane can stop you from being able to access all your physical games disc aging, console death, etc... lots of reasons.

Yeah with their heavy DRM these days, I don't see physical games actually being that valuable compared to digital, especially with how many games are unplayable without updates anyway (for example, would anyone really want to play ACNH without any of the updates?)

I see greater value in having access to as-plaintext-as-possible files that I can backup by simply copying somewhere, which is why I stick mostly to PC and consoles that have been thoroughly hacked.