Many consumers would love to buy both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles when they arrive this November. Now it turns out that hardware developments from Microsoft and Sony will allow people to play a game from each console on one TV at the same time.

Earlier this week, Sony announced as part of its Tokyo Game Show presentation that the company would allow for capturing of game video with its HDMI port. This is an interesting move by Sony since it established HDCP copy protection over an HDMI connection in its current PS3 console.

Microsoft has put an HDMI pass-through port in the Xbox One, which allows it to output video from another hardware device. The port was put in primarily to allow Xbox One owners to connect it to a cable TV set top box so they could watch a TV show in snapped mode while also playing a game. Microsoft has also confirmed that the Xbox One will work with external video capture devices.

Now that Sony has said there will be no video capture copy protection for games with the PS4's HDMI port, Microsoft has revealed that has opened the door to a crossover between the two rival consoles. In a GameSpot interview, Microsoft exec Albert Penello (spelled incorrectly in the article as "Albert Panello") talked about the snap feature in the Xbox One's user interface. He said, "... any application can be snapped to a game…this could be the live TV feed, so if you wanted to be playing Ryse and Killzone at the same time, you could snap that."

This opens the door to some interesting possibilities as game reviewers will be able to really compare the looks of both the Xbox One and PS4 versions of one game at the same time. It also would seem like the Xbox One's HDMI in port could also connect to the Xbox 360 or the Wii U.

Posted: Sep 21, 2013 10:18 pm
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-xbox-one-can-connect-to-ps4-you-can-play-ryse-and-killzone-at-the-same-time