Take a Bite of the Apple
Apple has really come on strong as a gaming platform thanks to the iPhone, iOS and the iPads. They have certainly shown that mobile gaming needn’t be lo-res graphics, poor controls and generally no fun. Sure, the early days of the iOS Gaming Gold Rush saw scores of poor titles that were rehashed or ported copies of previous titles but there have been loads of great new games like Angry Birds, Earth Defender: First Encounter, Doodle God, Likwid and others too numerous to name.
The problem here is that while it is one login, multiple platforms, many games require double purchase for the so-called "HD" version so that you can play the same game on the iPad that you have on your iPhone. That seems like a dirty trick and I am certain it has hurt game sales, just not to the point where anyone over there gives a crap. Since both pieces of hardware run the same operating system it seems only right that one purchase would allow play on both.
The big question is whether or not they will allow one game to be played on all of their platforms including Apple TV and Mac OS. Right now the Mac App store is highly restricted but it most likely won’t stay that way for long as they continue to expand it,perhaps even one day allowing Game Center and iOS cross-platform gameplay.
Game Center is Apple’s attempt at tying it all together
One Game Everywhere
Perhaps the best bet we’ve got for some great cross-platform gaming are the likes of Unity which is already powering numerous games on numerous platforms. 
Browser-based games have really come a long way from the old text-only MUDs and such. Unity is definitely one of the platforms that looks great for all sorts of things.
Plus as tablets and superphones gain in both popularity and power we can expect cooler and cooler games to be targeted directly at these platforms. There’s also no reason that we can’t all play together and the browser-based games offer this already on hardware platforms that offers compatible browsers. Sure, there is going to be some limitation here on what can be accomplished because of the diverse array of hardware,but perhaps it could be ’dumbed down to a low, medium, high-res solution that automatically chooses the best settings based on what hardware you are on.
Unity is already so cool in fact that they have facilitated cross-platform gaming in many ways including on iOS and Android.
Dungeon Defenders, in fact, has cross-platform gameplay and is not powered by Unity, but actually by Unreal engine 3. They have managed to tie together:
That’s a pretty big achievement, for different platforms can all play together in multiplayer.
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave combines tower defense and hack-and-slash RPG gameplay for the ultimate mobile gaming experience. It was the second iOS game to run on the Unreal Engine 3 and the first Android game. Featuring four classes of customizable heroes, upgradable equipment & pets, and 4-player co-op over 3g and Wi-Fi, it is one of the most expansive mobile games to date. Dungeon Defenders: First Wave is currently available on iOS and Android and features cross-platform play.
Well, they will tie in PC and PS3 as soon as the full game is released. Second Wave is also out and is exclusive to the Xperia Play and allows online multiplayer, however, cross-platform was not in the write up at present.
Hardware Agnostic Gameplay
Since the rise of the consoles, the gaming world has been fragmented and segmented into niches. Many of us own multiple consoles, a PC and a smartphone or tablet and we want to game with our friends, regardless of what device they are using to play the game.
The key is good games. If the game is well-made and fun to play, I will play it on multiple platforms myself depending on where I am, what device I have with me and how much time I have.
There will always be console-exclusive titles and there will always be physical distribution of games. But I believe the future is not in those avenues but in digital distribution and hardware agnostic games. Games that can be played at almost any time, on multiple devices is what gaming needs. People talk about social games but you don’t generally interact with others when playing many of them.
We want real-time gameplay with PvP or co-op interactions on multiple devices. It has already been proven to work with Portal 2, Dungeon defenders and several other titles. Hopefully, the developers will see the value in these types of games and work to offer more. There is no reason that our online multiplayer gaming sessions should be platform limited and even Sony has proven that they can play well with others, so everyone else should be able to do so as well, right?
