Destiny and the Xbox 720

Even though there hasn't been (or at least I haven't seen) any official word on the release of the new Xbox, I have seen plenty of rumors that it's coming this fall. I can't help but wonder how this will be addressed Sunday.

Let's just say for a moment that Destiny gets announced to be on both the 360 and 720. Would you drop the money for the 720, or just get the game for your 360?

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Let's just say for a moment that Destiny gets announced to be on both the 360 and 720. Would you drop the money for the 720, or just get the game for your 360?

I'm a sucker for the latest and greatest, so I'll probably jump for the 720 myself, but I'll definitely keep my Reach 360 around for a little while as well (emulation never works as well as we want it to).

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Tough call. My 360s seem to all be imploding at the exact same time, be it due to red rings or unreadable disc errors. That could force my hand into buying the next system, and it's made all the more likely if Bungie's new game practically launches the new Xbox.

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I would definitely get it for the 360. Mostly because I'm poor. Now, would I upgrade if I ever had the money?

It would be entirely up to what the 720 turns out to be. Better graphics, faster shit - awesome. Internet required, more focus on non-games entertainment - no thanks.

Now that Bungie is no longer xbox-exclusive, (if I even take part in the next generation of consoles) I'll be choosing whatever system is catered best to my kind of gaming.

I will also wait five years for the system to be cheaper. Hopefully by then I'll have finished Skyrim.

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Now that Bungie is no longer xbox-exclusive, (if I even take part in the next generation of consoles) I'll be choosing whatever system is catered best to my kind of gaming.

Thiiiis. If certain nasty rumors about the PS4 and 720 turn out to be true (no used games, online to play anything), I'll likely get Destiny for 360 and the other ones for PC.

It's times like this that I'm glad Bungie is no longer tied down to one console.

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That means I'll actually have to learn up on PC hardware again. #dustingofftheengines

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I'm certain that I'll purchase the next Xbox the day it comes out and would get Destiny for it. If I'm unable to play it with friends on both the next and 360 like we could with Halo 2 then I'll be buying both versions if sensible.

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I'm not sure I can answer that at the monent; I think my Xbox's power supply is slowly frying itself to death, as I keep getting full drop-outs with a red light on it and the brick's hot to touch afterward.

If a replacement power brick is cheap I might get the next Xbox Next; if I end up having to replace the whole console, though, I may try to nurse that one along for a few years.

-- Steve seems to have developed a black thumb for his gadgetry lately. *sigh*

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The same thing was happening to mine recently - the fan in the power supply wasn't turning. Hold it up to your ear when it's running, you should be able to hear a noise. If you can't, the fan's probably not moving. Or, if it makes a REALLY bad noise, it's turning but not freely. :P

In my case I was able to get it going again by opening the power supply up, taking the fan off the motor spindle, and putting a dab of oil on the spindle. That was 2 months ago and it's still working.

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I expect it to be 360 (and non Microsoft platforms) only. If I'm wrong I'll still get it on the 360 for monetary reasons.

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I have met a lot of friends with Halo and the Xbox 360 in general. Yes. I would buy the new Xbox together with the Destiny version but I would buy the Xbox 360 version of Destiny to play with friends who are still playing on the 360.

At the end Destiny is the biggest reason to buy a next gen console. I have a special affection with Xbox. I like my GamerScore(It is kind of addicting. At least it was when I had started playing with my Xbox 360. Now it is just a gimmick but I won't get rid of the useless number). I mentioned I had met a lot of friends through Xbox Live. Furthermore I like Halo 4 and the direction 343i is heading with Halo in SP and Coop, so the new Xbox is a must buy for Halo.
At the end if the rumors about the new Xbox are true, It will be a difficult decision. I hope it is not the case because it will give the purchase a bittersweet taste.

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I have met a lot of friends with Halo and the Xbox 360 in general. Yes. I would buy the new Xbox together with the Destiny version but I would buy the Xbox 360 version of Destiny to play with friends who are still playing on the 360.

If I'm forced to choose, I think the movement of this community is going to be a big factor in my decision. I want to be able to play with as many people from here as I can. I'm hoping there isn't a huge split where we can't all get together for game nights.

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Here's hoping the game is able to be played across platforms, then. I'm not holding out for that being the case Xbox-Playstation, but I can see 360-720-PC being a nice triangle.
Edit: If that's the case, then I'll probably go with the PC version.

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It depends on how much of an MMO it is I guess.

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I've been waiting for a game to do this in true form, it would be a spectacular achievement for gamers everywhere.

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Here's hoping the game is able to be played across platforms, then. I'm not holding out for that being the case Xbox-Playstation, but I can see 360-720-PC being a nice triangle.

It's unlikely they would pit PC gamers against console gamers, regardless of the console. Previous tests have proven unequivocally that mouse/keyboard is so much better for an FPS than joypad that it conferred a significant advantage, even when you it was relatively unskilled PC gamers vs console ‘pro’ gamers.

Has there even been anything to suggest a PC release? All the documentation that was leaked so far only talked of Xbox 360 and PS3, from what I recall…

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Yeah I'm doubtful of a PC release, but I could have sworn I had read somewhere that it may be. Either way, at the very least a 360-720 cross platform play would be cool.

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You are, of course, assuming PvP.
In case there wasn't, would there be any ill-effects?

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You are, of course, assuming PvP.
In case there wasn't, would there be any ill-effects?

I don't know, that's an interesting one to consider. Even if there is no PvP game mode, having a substantial performance advantage over your teammates might spoil the enjoyment for some? I'm not sure.

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It's hard to say without knowing more about the gameplay. For example, if you and a group of friends take part in PVE combat, would a player who performs better necessarily get better rewards (for example, you get XP and items only from enemies you get the kill on), or is the group as a whole rewarded equally from each encounter (everyone receives X amount of XP, and equal or equivalent items, at the end of an encounter - this option assumes there are distinctly defined encounter events of course)? Or are items just dropped on the ground - in this case it could be that someone with faster/more precise movement controls might be able to grab everything first.

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I remember playing some games on the Xbox before I got my 360. One of the Ghost Recon games stands out in my mind. Going back and replaying the 360 version a few months later showed me that I was definitely getting the inferior experience by not playing on the next gen console.

720 for me.

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It all comes down to which platform gets Destiny first.

If it's on 360 first, I'll get it.

If it's on 720 along-side the 360, PS3, PS4, and PC ?? Then that'll be the *difficult* choice. Most likely I'll fall into the PC category unless the PS4 or 720 is incredibly innovative and spectacular with none of the current rumors of online-only and death-to-used-games are true.

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I just want a PC version, but I'll settle for 360 for Destiny 1.

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I can't not have the newest system if that makes any sense... I bought a Wii U recently. AWESOME little machine (Not technically next gen power but still a fun console.)

I am pumped for this weeks announcement of the PS4 (On the 20th if you were unaware) and Durango is sure to follow soon. My question is which console will I buy Destiny for? PS4 is more powerful than Durango (Barring some crazy last minute change) but will the difference in 3rd party titles show?

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Odds are I will not be buying a 720 so I'll just get it on whatever current gen console they release it on and probably PC too. Then future one's I'll get on PC and maybe PS4 if I buy that and it is on that.

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Since I don't own a 360, I'd happily purchase an xbox 720. It was be an even easier decision if the 720 has blu-ray as rumors claim.

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I'd also jump on the new console bandwagon, even if Destiny was the only game I owned for the system. I feel like the next generation is going to be something we've never conceived as far as graphics, processing, and game quality is concerned. Let's watch Destiny be the best!

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I'll keep my 360, how else am I going to play the beta?

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Does this bother anyone else?

I have a feeling a next gen version of Destiny would be only marginally better visuals and still possess the same core gameplay, or else they would effectively be producing two different games. Why would Bungie sell themselves short with Destiny by making it for 360 when they could go all-out on the next-gen systems?

I want Destiny to be next-gen only. Push the envelope, Bungie.

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There's like a trillion 360's out there, though. That's a huge market to just ignore. I'd much rather a proper, scalable engine running the game to make the audience as wide as possible - that is assuming you can play with friends and enemies cross-gen...

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Does this bother anyone else?

I have a feeling a next gen version of Destiny would be only marginally better visuals and still possess the same core gameplay, or else they would effectively be producing two different games. Why would Bungie sell themselves short with Destiny by making it for 360 when they could go all-out on the next-gen systems?

I want Destiny to be next-gen only. Push the envelope, Bungie.

I thought Destiny would be 360 and PS3 (and PC?) only. Making it for next gen consoles doesn't make much sense given how long ago development started and how that development is just now in its final stages.

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While it does matter if the game is coming out in pretty soon, they can develop most of the game without having a dev kit for one of the platforms they are going to use, so the 720 isn't necessarily out.

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I want Destiny to be next-gen only. Push the envelope, Bungie.

Ignoring the fact that making it next-gen only would massively limit your market, there are technical complications in releasing such a title on new hardware, effectively at the launch of said hardware. Games companies tend not to have found out all the neat tricks for getting the best out of the hardware so early on, and as a result games tend to be more conservative in visuals to begin with. You can see this for yourself with the massive difference in visual quality between Halo 3 and Reach/4. Playing Halo 2 again recently it became apparent just how much closer to Halo 3 it looks than I remembered, despite being on the previous generation of hardware — it was, after all, released only a year before the Xbox 360.

Also, the leaked court documents that referred to Destiny in the Activision / Infinity Ward case specifically mentioned that the first Destiny title was intended to be current-gen only, and next-gen with the sequel. So unless the plans have changed (and assuming it was accurate in the first place) this game will be for Xbox 360 and PS3 only.

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Ignoring the fact that making it next-gen only would massively limit your market, there are technical complications in releasing such a title on new hardware, effectively at the launch of said hardware. Games companies tend not to have found out all the neat tricks for getting the best out of the hardware so early on, and as a result games tend to be more conservative in visuals to begin with. You can see this for yourself with the massive difference in visual quality between Halo 3 and Reach/4.

I'm not convinced that we'll see the same thing happen quite so drastically, for a couple reasons.

The first is that Halo 3's graphics are way better than people seem to acknowledge them as being. I always get sort of perplexed when people praise Halo 3's lighting and that "look" it has but then say they wish that a game with good graphics would do it, as though the effect was purely done by the art team and not engineered through a system that's every bit as expensive as 2x supersample antialising. Bungie could easily have pushed vastly more detail at a higher resolution. The game also has some decently solid bits and pieces, like the water system and the way vehicles are handled post-explosion. 2007 Bungie probably wouldn't have pulled off Reach, but Halo 3 isn't as far behind as it's sometimes made out to be. It has different priorities.

The second is that hardware architectures haven't shifted as much as they during the last decade. Programmable shaders took off like crazy between 2001 and 2005; you can count the original Xbox's shader units on one hand, while the 360's GPU features an array of 240 programmable vector processors. It took the industry a while to catch up with itself and learn to use what it had at its fingertips. And while this is an ongoing process, it's slowed down a lot. And while we've certainly tossed more stuff into the specs since the 360 and DirectX 9, it's more "yeah, let's drop this extra step into the pipeline and add more parallel units" than "HOLY CRAP LET'S LOAD THIS OLD CONFIGURABLE HW ACCELERATOR CHIP WITH HUNDREDS OF FULLY PROGRAMMABLE PARALLEL PROCESSORS!" Some of the bigger advancements from Halo 3 to Reach (like the particle system) involved Bungie realizing that they could take advantage of certain parts of the GPU for certain weird things (Reach's particles actually bounce in screen-space; if you don't see a polygon, they won't bounce off of it. It's all handled in the depth buffer. !!!). Those kinds of developments simply aren't going to happen as fast as they used to unless there's another radical change in GPU architecture.

Next gen is going to be a jump for sure, but I don't think it'll feature quite as heavy a learning curve for developers as last gen, despite the 8-year gap.

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Also the insides of next gen systems are essentially off the shelf PC parts. Game development is going to get a bit simpler (Especially Playstation now that they are ditching cell.)

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Next gen is going to be a jump for sure, but I don't think it'll feature quite as heavy a learning curve for developers as last gen, despite the 8-year gap.

Undoubtedly the fact the architectures of both Orbis and Durango are closer to a modern PC will simplify things to an extent, but the underlying hardware is only one part of the equation. I suspect that where the learning curve was for the most part in the current generation was learning to make best use of middleware created by the likes of Epic, which will also be changing for the new generation. I'm not sure just what third-party middleware Bungie use (I remember seeing Havok in the credits, but it's possible there are others too) but the same would apply even with in-house middleware. It takes time to create such new software, and will get better and faster gradually, not instantly. Art assets will need to be built with a specific target level of performance in mind too.

Ultimately, as great as the hardware will seem at release (compared to current-gen consoles, anyway) it will be left in the dust by PCs 3-4 years from now, and it'll be at this point that developers will need to eke out every last drop of performance in order to be able to release titles that are visually comparable on both PC and console.

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Does this bother anyone else?

I have a feeling a next gen version of Destiny would be only marginally better visuals and still possess the same core gameplay, or else they would effectively be producing two different games. Why would Bungie sell themselves short with Destiny by making it for 360 when they could go all-out on the next-gen systems?

I want Destiny to be next-gen only. Push the envelope, Bungie.

Core gameplay these days doesn't take a lot. You're only going to get marginal improvements in AI and Physics and stuff that many players won't be able to tell the difference with. In many respects, Halo 4 plays largely like Halo 2.

The small number of users of the 720 at launch (and hence potential sales for Destiny) would instantly make any advances in gameplay worthless as they wouldn't be able to fund them.

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Reading though the responses, it seems that there's good evidence that Destiny (at least the first game) will be just on the 360 and PS3. If so, I don't have any incentive to pick up the new Xbox if it comes out this fall. I just don't have time to get into a lot of new games anymore, and right now Destiny is at the top of my list.

I guess that's good for my wallet, but I have been wanting a shiny new console. I just can't justify getting one if it doesn't have the game I'm going to be playing.

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Reading though the responses, it seems that there's good evidence that Destiny (at least the first game) will be just on the 360 and PS3. If so, I don't have any incentive to pick up the new Xbox if it comes out this fall. I just don't have time to get into a lot of new games anymore, and right now Destiny is at the top of my list.

I guess that's good for my wallet, but I have been wanting a shiny new console. I just can't justify getting one if it doesn't have the game I'm going to be playing.

I'm about the same. On the original xbox I played a lot of games beyond Halo. Once I got a 360 that changed. I need to know more about what kind of game it will be. I don't like MMOs but I can give it a chance. I just hope it doesn't require HUGE investments in terms of time. I just don't have it :(

What will be really interesting to see I think, is how many folks from here will continue to play Halo and Destiny. Will people be excited for Halo 5? Will it even matter if its a good game if Destiny trumps it?

As I learned in my thread below, seems like there are more people than I thought who are ready to be "done" with Halo. Ready for something else, part ways, etc.

Lots of long term things to watch here...

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I see myself playing both series. Just too invested in Halo to be done with it, and there's no way in hell I won't give every Bungie game a thorough go.

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It'll be on PC, right? If so, PC all day erry day for old SMP.

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I'll probably drop money on the 720 regardless.

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I would strongly consider a new system for Destiny.

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Cross-platform and cross-gen playability?
I'll probably get for the PC.

Cross-gen only?
Probably get a 720 (awful name if it the official...), yes.

None of the above?
360. I don't want to be stranded with a sea of randoms when I can have HBO all-day everyday.

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