Sheesh. Given that title it seems I'm feeling a bit trollish this weekend... Sorry about that!

Anyway, listening to the Bungie Mooncast my trolly little ears perked up when they started talking about next gen stuff and how they were glad to have the console wars back in swing and how the more advanced features of Destiny will hopefully push people to the next generation or how the next gen consoles will hopefully push people towards Destiny. It sounds great!

Except I'll be stuck on the 360! :(

Yes, I'm excited to hear about Destiny's graphics, but what I care about is what's going to be left for me. I don't know what I'm all worried about, Bungie has given me direct assurances* that it will be fine on the 360. I guess I'll be fearful until the beta is in my cold dead hands. Who knows, maybe they're really aiming for Christmas as a surprise. :)

The other big things I heard in the podcasts were how much easier it is for Bungie to make places for us to play in and the really cool idea of shooting things to rapidly advance the time of day. Sound great for time traveling robots. :)

*Remember when Deej answered our questions after the first Destiny reveal? Yeah, I wasted mine on asking if Destiny would play ok on the 360, as if Bungie was going to ship us a half done game or something.

Next gen rigs may not be the same, either. This caught my eye today.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Microsoft-Embargo-Prohibits-Journalists-From-Revealing-Call-Duty-Ghosts-720p-Xbox-On...

The 720p issue isn't a showstopper for me, but it does give me pause.

I've actually been fooled several times by the current gen versions, thinking graphical features I was looking at were reserved for next gen shininess. I don't understand how the graphics team juggles everything across four unique platforms, but they do and the end results look wonderful, and are getting better all the time.

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I don't understand how the graphics team juggles everything across four unique platforms, but they do and the end results look wonderful, and are getting better all the time.

The power of the KICKASS TIGER SHADER BALL.

Respect the tiger!

Fear the zebra!

Destiny graphics!

We've seen some very good looking games on the aul consoles this year, so I wouldn't be too worried.

How Bungie are managing 4 [5, because it's coming to PC*] platforms effectively does worry me, but it still feels like early days.

*Willing it into confirmed existence

urk I've actually been fooled several times by the current gen versions, thinking graphical features I was looking at were reserved for next gen shininess. I don't understand how the graphics team juggles everything across four unique platforms, but they do and the end results look wonderful, and are getting better all the time.

Linked article For a team that has spent quite a bit of time developing for the 360 and PS3 — there have been five Assassin's Creed games released for those two consoles — being able to squeeze even more out of the hardware came as a surprise. "We already mastered the current generation," says Trottier. "Our engineers know their way around all of the issues, we have a lot of experience with it." He headed up a small team at Ubisoft's Montreal studio focused specifically on the next-generation versions of the game, and what they found time and time again was that the two versions were complimentary. "Every time our engineers or technical directors found tricks for the next-gen," explains Trottier, "the first question that always came back was 'can I have this on current gen?'"

No doubt its possible that this is the case too for Bungie. {Link}

One thing you'll notice is that stuff like this...

being able to squeeze even more out of the hardware came as a surprise

...is a somewhat inaccurate paraphrase of the actual quotes.

The reality is that any technique that can be done on XBO and PS4 can be done on PS360. The question is at what precision can you do it, and is the overhead worth it?

Saying that AC's plants sway and react to physical impulses is nothing new for games in general. Halo 3's plants could be described in the same terms (it could even be applied to some sixth-gen games, more or less). The reaction to physical impulses is an interesting design choice, but it's hardly unique to next gen, and it's not something that comes without compromise in other areas. And as the article you referenced says, AC's plant behaviour on current-gen is a highly simplified version of what they're doing on the next-gen platforms. In other words, it's a very current-gen-ish implementation that they only bothered compromising toward so that they could maintain some semblance of visual style parity. That way, their artists wouldn't have to reimagine every area between two different visual styles.

Yes, there will likely be visual features that they wouldn't be implementing if they weren't also developing on next-gen consoles. But that doesn't mean those features are free, or that they're done at the same quality. It doesn't even necessarily mean that they're a better compromise than what the games would have done if they'd been current-gen only. These things are what they are.

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Destiny is going to look good.

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We have to wait.

NO TELLING what is going to surface after the Destiny beta re:resolutions features per NEXT/GEN etc…

WHAT IS FUNNY is that LAME CALL OF DUTY can't even upgrade their graphics for the nextGen.

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…what's the point of next-gen, exactly?

Obviously I know the answer, but it does raise that question in a way that I don't think any previous ‘new’ generation has before.