Minecraft guide: How to set up Xbox Live for cross-play on Playstation 4

After an excruciatingly long wait, Mojang and Sony have opened their doors and released the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft onto the Playstation 4 platform. This update comes complete with the Better Together update, which turns on full cross-play support across Windows, Xbox, VR, Switch, and mobile platforms. Minecraft: Bedrock Edition also gets faster updates and is pretty much guaranteed to be fully supported for as long as Minecraft is around.

The only thing standing between Minecraft fans on Playstation and the quintessential edition of Minecraft is signing into a Microsoft Account to enable cross-play. Luckily, it's straight-forward to set it all up.

Related: Everything you need to know about the Minecraft Buzzy Bees Update

Update December 14, 2019: Mojang has come out on Twitter and claimed that they've found a potential fix for the log-in and content issues that players have been reporting. They're advising players to restart their games fully and attempt the process again. However, we've seen many reports that the issues are not resolved yet, so are not updating our Known Issues list at this time. It does seem that the Minecraft Earth issue that we reported earlier is solved.

Update December 10, 2019: Mojang has reported that some players are having issues connecting their Microsoft Account to their Playstation 4, and are currently working on resolving the issues. Additionally, Mojang has suggested that Minecraft Earth players do not connect to their Microsoft Account to the Playstation 4 edition of Minecraft at this time, as it can lead to loss of progression and/or items in Minecraft Earth. We'll update this article when we have confirmed the issues have been resolved.

How to connect your Xbox Live to Minecraft

One of the reasons Minecraft: Bedrock Edition took so long to make its way to Playstation is that it requires an active Xbox Live account to enable cross-play features. Xbox Live is powered by a Microsoft Account, and it's completely free for anyone to sign-up for one, so, fortunately, its not a tall order to fulfill. To connect your Xbox Live account to your Playstation's version of Minecraft, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you own Minecraft on Playstation. If you're not a proud owner of Minecraft on your Playstation yet, you can buy it from Amazon or through the PlayStation Store. All current PS4 Edition owners will also recieve a completely free update to move to the Bedrock Edition.
2. Make sure you have a Microsoft Account. As mentioned before, an Xbox Live account is powered by a Microsoft Account. These accounts power all kinds of Microsoft services like Outlook, Office 365 and more. If you don't already have one, you can create one for free.
3. Make sure you have an extra device. Your Playstation 4 will ask you to access a website from an external device like a phone or computer to sign-in to your Microsoft Account.
4. Open Minecraft on your Playstation 4. You'll sign-in to your Microsoft Account from within Minecraft, rather than your Playstation directly.

5. Select "Sign In For Free" when prompted. Upon initial launch into the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft you'll see a message pop up informing you of the advantages of connecting a Microsoft Account to Minecraft.

6. Navigate to the displayed website. Minecraft will request that you navigate to https://aka.ms/remoteconnect on your phone or computer.
7. Enter the code from Minecraft. Looking back at Minecraft, you'll see a code displayed underneath the URL. Enter this code on your device to allow access to your Microsoft Account.

8. Finish the process. A new screen will confirm that your Xbox Live profile is now connected to Minecraft. You can now reap the benefits of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition on your Playstation 4!

How to play with friends on other platforms

Now that you're cozied up to Xbox Live on your Playstation, you can play with your friends and family from basically any gaming platform that has Minecraft. As long as they're on the Bedrock Edition, you're ready to play. There's three different ways of accomplishing this, from creating a new world, joining a friend's game, or participating in a Realm.

• Creating a new world. If you're set on creating a new world, allowing cross-play is easy. Whenever you're on the creation screen, navigate to the Multiplayer tab underneath the default Game tab and ensure that the "multiplayer" option is enabled. Once you've done that and have created your world. You can invite people to your game, or have others join you while you're playing.

• Joining a friend's world. When you're in the Play menu, the tab to the right of the Worlds tab is the Friends tab. This tab lets you see which of your friends are currently online and are joinable, including those on the same platform and those playing elsewhere. From here you can just choose a game you want to join.
• Joining a Realm. The Bedrock Edition on Playstation 4 will also recieve full support for servers and Realms. They're not there at release, but are promised to be added in a future update. When they arrive, if one of your friends has a Realm you wish to join, or you're interested in creating a realm, you can also do this from the Friends tab.

Known issues

This section will change and evolve over time as we recieve new information and the situation changes. Every major launch is liable to have some speedbumps to overcome, and shifting a huge player base from one version of a game seamlessly to the next is no exception. Here's all the current issues we're aware of:

• Some users cannot connect their Microsoft Account to their Playstation 4. This is an issue Mojang is aware of and is actively working on. For many this issue might already be solved. If you're impatient and aren't willing to wait while Mojang fixes the problem on their end, some users on Reddit have reported that clearing the cache from Minecraft on their Playstation 4 has allowed them to attempt the login process again, with better success the second time around. You can do this by going to Settings > Applications > Minecraft on your PS4.
• Some users are having issues accessing content on their Playstation 4. This is related to the previous issue with content disappearing from Minecraft Earth when the same Microsoft Account was connected to both. Mojang has suspended content roaming to Playstation 4 while they investigate the issue. This is also supposedly fixed with the last update, but players are still reporting that their content is not syncing. It does seem it is safe to connect your Microsoft Account to your PS4 without affecting Minecraft Earth, though.
• An uncommon bug is leading to abnormally long loading times. We've only seen a handful of cases, but a few players are reporting that the game is taking an awfully long time to load, to the point that it's basically frozen on the Mojang splash screen. Restarting your Playstation 4 may solve this issue temporarily if you run into this, but waiting it out is likely the most effective route.
• You can only search for Microsoft gamertags at this time. If you're looking to jump into a game with a friend from another platform, you're only able to search for players with Xbox gamertags right now. This is another thing that Mojang is looking to improve on, but as of now let your friends know to search for you instead.

This isn't necessarily an issue, but still bears some mentioning: Realms and servers are not present in the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft on Playstation 4. Mojang has confirmed that they are coming, and will arrive in the future, but as of time of writing they are not present in the game. It took Mojang several weeks to bring this feature to the Nintendo Switch, so I'd expect a similar turnaround for the Playstation 4.

A new age

With the addition of Playstation to the Bedrock Editions of Minecraft, there's a new powerful hero for cross-play and cross-platform support. These features put consumers first, and are quickly becoming more common in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Fortnite. Even more importantly, it's now easier than ever to jump in a game with your friends and family and enjoy a bout of Minecraft.