And it had also better support 4 player splitscreen, the most social mode of all.

Hmm. Maybe 2-player. How common is 4 player splitscreen now in other games?

I'd sooner see them use increased graphics horsepower to drive multiple displays. I realize that may not be a common situation, but as a compromise between splitscreen and having two complete systems, having an extra monitor or TV that can be moved into position near the console for multiplayer gaming offers a better view without necessarily spending a bundle.

1. I can't play with my friends
2. The population is too thin on my platform of choice, so I can't find people to play with/or people in the world.

As for 1, sadly there's not much that can be done. That's by design of the platform holders, as they feel it's in their best interest to hold your friends list hostage (FWIW of course, it's also an advantage that I can keep it from game to game. A third party independant, cross platform friends list would be great)

As for Destiny, how much of an issue will it be? I mean, if destiny was a traditional MMO, splitting the playerbase into 4 wouldn't be enough. Most MMOs (and even large scale shooters like PS2) have dozens of different servers. Destiny seems different though, as it's designed around curating small interactions, rather than just putting everyone in a mixer and letting you go.

Bungie is accomplishing this via some form of matchmaking, which in my experience has a logarithmic relationship between game quality and population. IE, double the population in Team Objective improved MM significantly, but in team slayer it had little effect.

From a players perspective, how different will it be in a heavily populated version vs. a less populated one? The big, obvious signs of matchmaking breaking down: Long waits and bad matches are less of an issue from what we know. Instead of sitting in a screen waiting, you are just playing, and you may or may not run into people. Depending on how pivotal those other people are to your enjoyment, you may not notice, or it may be a big deal, but either way, it's less obtrusive than sitting in a blue screen waiting.

So the final question is, "How many people do we need in each version?" Dark souls is probably a good clue here. When I played DS on the 360 it had pushed maybe 600k copies at that point, and I rarely had issues summoning or getting summoned. Also worth noting, DS has extremely rigid matchmaking, a little flexibility, and larger server populations (I think it was broken into 3 different servers) would have probably wiped away those other issues.

So yea, I'm not too worried about it making numbers for population, but hey, maybe the content will be so sprawling that it will be an issue. There's a lot of unknowns here.

It would be pretty sweet to be able to do cross-console play, but what is the downside to not being able to? Each console is bound to have a large enough community to support the game. The way Destiny is engineered, the actual number of players is largely irrelevant: since it has that wonderful silent matchmaking tool, you never actually see how many people are playing.

From the perspective of a Lone Wolf, it's likely any version would suffice, otherwise, the logistical difficulties of playing Destiny with friends and communities quickly become apparent.

But beyond solving basic social networking problems, a unified game universe would also serve towards a sense of community that is greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine being at work and asking a co-worker, "Do you play Destiny? We should play together sometime!" and having that be all that is required for the beginning of a great co-op experience. It would allow people to play with each other with an ease and scope unlike anything in existence.

If Destiny turns out amazing beyond our expectations, it will be a travesty against fun to segment people from playing with each other solely because of the different $500 proprietary gaming computers in which they chose to invest.

Yup!

And it had also better support 4 player splitscreen, the most social mode of all.

It would be pretty sweet to be able to do cross-console play, but what is the downside to not being able to? Each console is bound to have a large enough community to support the game. The way Destiny is engineered, the actual number of players is largely irrelevant: since it has that wonderful silent matchmaking tool, you never actually see how many people are playing.

From the perspective of a Lone Wolf, it's likely any version would suffice, otherwise, the logistical difficulties of playing Destiny with friends and communities quickly become apparent.

But beyond solving basic social networking problems, a unified game universe would also serve towards a sense of community that is greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine being at work and asking a co-worker, "Do you play Destiny? We should play together sometime!" and having that be all that is required for the beginning of a great co-op experience. It would allow people to play with each other with an ease and scope unlike anything in existence.

If Destiny turns out amazing beyond our expectations, it will be a travesty against fun to segment people from playing with each other solely because of the different $500 proprietary gaming computers in which they chose to invest.

I never expected to play with Xbox 360 players when I have the Xbox One version. I never expected to play with PS4 users when I play on my PS3. That was all wishful thinking.

Why not? This has been the standard for how these massive shared world type games have operated in the past. Regardless of platform, if you had a client you could connect to the same world as everybody else. Most were PC/Mac only because of this, with a few exceptions of course. Especially with Destiny ostensibly being such a social game, this is a major step backward, and antithetical to that goal.

I realize this is beyond their control of course, but they are partly responsible since they are targeting 4 (3?) incompatible platforms, instead of just making PC/Mac/Linux versions that can play together like has been common up to this point.

It is suspect, because it's certainly possible. Defiance was going to support cross platform play but Microsoft blocked the feature.

http://kotaku.com/5813740/i-saw-the-playstation-3-wired-to-play-against-an-xbox-360-but-you-wont

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie and Activision were able to make it happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen either...

The only way I'll be really annoyed though is if my characters can't transfer across all systems

It is suspect, because it's certainly possible. Defiance was going to support cross platform play but Microsoft blocked the feature.

http://kotaku.com/5813740/i-saw-the-playstation-3-wired-to-play-against-an-xbox-360-but-you-wont

Shared World shooter, so long as you don't want to share with 3/4 the people playing!

I think having a unified universe would have been amazing enough to put the weight of Bungie and Activision behind coercing the hardware companies. "If you won't let us provide cross-platform play, Destiny will not come to your platform."

I would that it were so. I think the industry's best next step is to start bridging as many gaps between player populations as possible. Activision certainly has the experience with running large scale operations like that, and a client is a client is a client (to a point, of course) with regard to a game session. If there is a second login layer beyond the platform's online services, I don't see why at that point once there is a degree of security authentication already established, there would be any real difference in the experience. Of course it's broad strokes, and there are plenty of considerations, but what are the really good reasons why not?

~M

http://kotaku.com/5813740/i-saw-the-playstation-3-wired-to-play-against-an-xbox-360-but-you-wont

http://www.videogamer.com/news/microsoft_rules_out_xbox_one_xbox_360_cross-platform_play.html

Even though it's in theory possible on a technical level, it looks like Microsoft is not interested in allowing it to happen.

Eh. We'll see. The reasoning in that quote seems... suspect. Makes me wonder if it's not just another "we haven't really nailed this down yet, I guess I shouldn't have said anything" type situation.

Ugh.

Unless Sony allows PS3<->PS4 crossplay, Destiny is going to be split between 4 pools of players.