At this point, it's pretty much known that Destiny (well, at least the first one) will be released without the PC in mind.

My question is, is it really a bad thing?

I mean, Bungie already has a lot of console followers, many of which will probably want to buy Destiny. And they have already extended out to the PS3 to gain more customers.

Do you think that a PC release would be worth it?

When did they lose console followers?

As for not being on PC. Maybe all the PC people are just jealous? They missed out on Halo and now it seems they will be missing out on Destiny. The newest, greatest First World Shooter… no no… Massively Open Player… eh… whatever it will be.

When did they lose console followers?

He didn't say they lost console followers, almost the opposite.

When did they lose console followers?

Wait, what?

*Goes back and read OP*

Uhh, what?

*Confused.*

My bad. My mind threw in an s into lot. And rewrote the rest of his sentence. Wow. That was kinda impressive actually. /me slinks away embarrassed!

- No text -

As for not being on PC. Maybe all the PC people are just jealous? They missed out on Halo and now it seems they will be missing out on Destiny.

Being a PC people, and having grown up with Halo 1 through 3, it's not as much jelaousy as accesability. I don't have a TV, and my 360 is about to die. And I definitely don't plan on buying the next gen consoles since I barely play on consoles anymore.

So this puts me in a seat where I'd have to buy a new console for one game, while I have a perfectly capable computer which could probably run the game just fine.

Then you also have the community aspect, back in the days of Halo 2, matchmaking was lively, people talked and harassed the shit out of you, nowadays everyone and their mothers are huddled up in private chats or barely even have a microphone. I don't really see that working in the MMO/Party-system whatever Bungie is aiming for...

Consoles are great for party games and shooters, but I have a hard time seeing a game with the depth Bungie is promising work in the console space. It just feels that they will have to cut a lot of complexity for the sake of usability.

These are just some of my concerns as a PC people...

If Destiny came out on PC, I would definitely be buying it over the Xbox version. By all accounts this is going to be a decidedly social experience. I was planning on introducing my friends to the game, who are all largely PC gamers. We have a blast playing regular sessions of TF2 and Mass Effect 3 MP, and we have a small guild in Guild Wars 2. I was looking forward to including Destiny in our roster of social games, but as only a few of us have consoles, that goes down the toilet with no PC release.

I'm sure there are other people in the same boat, not to mention the fact that they'd be generally opening up a huge additional market if they released on PC. So yeah, I'd say it'd most certainly be worth it.

Consoles are great for party games and shooters, but I have a hard time seeing a game with the depth Bungie is promising work in the console space. It just feels that they will have to cut a lot of complexity for the sake of usability.

You've pretty much summarized Bungie's design philosophy-- not just during the console years, but probably everything post-Marathon.

Myth was pretty complicated, but leaving out resource management and construction made the game simper than popular RTS games from the same period and eased the learning curve a bit.

Halo was designed to be very accessible, and it was designed to get more accessible over time, even while adding back some complexity to gain a bit of depth.

I think what Bungie will be trying to do with Destiny is to give people some of the social and cooperative benefits that you normally only see in very complex games on the PC (like Eve Online) and bring them seamlessly to a living room experience where you don't need to worry about what's going on under the hood-- stuff just works.

It's a tall order, I think.

I feel like they said it would be available on PC waaaaay back when.

I experienced Halo, all of it, by going to hang out with a friend who had an XBOX. I finally purchased a 360 a few years ago, just in time for the next generation to be brought up, just so that I could replay the franchise and get H4. I was reeaally looking forward to playing this one at a desk.

I'm sure they've got statistics behind their decisision re: how bad it'll hurt business, so I can't make any wild claims about that. But I'm still peeved.

Parsons was hinting pretty damn strongly that a PC release was in the works.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/destiny-bungie-and-the-pc-why-the-ambitious-game-is-likely-coming-to...

The interesting part is we, from the ground up, from the very beginning, we have made sure that [Destiny] can be on multiple platforms,” Parsons assured me. “It’s one thing to say it, it’s another to design and actually architect for it, which we’ve absolutely done. “

This is a pretty long response for something that could have been a simple “no comment,” but Parsons talked about the difficulties in technology Bungie was facing in order to get all the systems of Destiny up and running, and the challenge of making a game of this magnitude that was also a smooth experience for players. With the size of the investment being made by both Bungie and Activision, it makes sense to keep an eye on current and future platforms.

Yes, PC is one among many possible platforms he could have meant. But you're taking the nebulous "multiple platforms" and somehow extrapolating that to be a confirmation of their PC intentions? He could have meant ANY platform by that statement. And that's assuming he was hinting toward any particular platform in the first place, when it's more likely he was just saying that the game is built in such a way as to make it less challenging to port to different system architectures.

I feel like they said it would be available on PC waaaaay back when.

I experienced Halo, all of it, by going to hang out with a friend who had an XBOX. I finally purchased a 360 a few years ago, just in time for the next generation to be brought up, just so that I could replay the franchise and get H4. I was reeaally looking forward to playing this one at a desk.

I'm sure they've got statistics behind their decisision re: how bad it'll hurt business, so I can't make any wild claims about that. But I'm still peeved.

Can I ask why?

I was sort of peeved when MS bought Bungie and they switched from making games for the Mac to making games for the Xbox.

That meant I either had to start buying Xbox(es) or find something else to play.

I thought I'd pull a dirty trick-- buy an Xbox and ONLY Halo-- eventually, if everyone did that, they'd be forced to release on other platforms!

Except... the Xbox wasn't all bad, and there were plenty of good games to play.

Aside from 360 reliability-- which is and continues to be a HUGE issue (one I had in reserve just broke last week, way out of warranty, already repaired once) what is the objection that PC gamers have to the console? Is it the expense? Living room space? What?

Aside from 360 reliability-- which is and continues to be a HUGE issue (one I had in reserve just broke last week, way out of warranty, already repaired once) what is the objection that PC gamers have to the console? Is it the expense? Living room space? What?

PC-only gamers tend to be of the opinion that:

A. Mouse and keyboard is such a superior input method that they are being physically and mentally tortured if they are ever put in a situation where they have to use anything else. Driving a car must be hell for them.

B. If they're not using the absolute most bleeding-edge hardware they can afford, their gaming experience is being somehow hampered. If they're not seeing the most pixels at the highest possible framerate, playing games is pointless.

Note: There is some hyperbole above. But this is basically it - PC-only gamers either believe very strongly in mouse/keyboard, or they feel they need the latest hardware. For many of them, both are true.

Note: There is some hyperbole above. But this is basically it - PC-only gamers either believe very strongly in mouse/keyboard, or they feel they need the latest hardware. For many of them, both are true.

When I got my current home machine I joked that I'd levelled up in most popular PC game in the world: "Stat Wars". I'd be able to rattle off the then-awesome alphabet soup of i7-920 quad-core hyperthreaded 2.66GHz CPU and 6GB 1GHz DDR3 RAM and Crossfire-Xed dual Radeon arglebarglegargle. Seeing that the human eye really can't see much difference between 60fps and 120fps, getting a system cranking out 166fps seems to me just another gambit in a pissing match. (Frankly I'm happy if I get something fairly stable north of the 30fps mark.)

-- Steve loves having the excess power, but doesn't let that dictate his choice of gaming platform.

- No text -

Can I ask why?

I was sort of peeved when MS bought Bungie and they switched from making games for the Mac to making games for the Xbox.

That meant I either had to start buying Xbox(es) or find something else to play.

I thought I'd pull a dirty trick-- buy an Xbox and ONLY Halo-- eventually, if everyone did that, they'd be forced to release on other platforms!

Except... the Xbox wasn't all bad, and there were plenty of good games to play.

Aside from 360 reliability-- which is and continues to be a HUGE issue (one I had in reserve just broke last week, way out of warranty, already repaired once) what is the objection that PC gamers have to the console? Is it the expense? Living room space? What?

PC gives me more flexibility. I'm comfortable at a desk, two feet from my screen with a headset. I don't have to split my screen when I play with my wife. I can easily alternate between web surfing and gaming, listening to music, and communicating with my buddies (I know all of those things are possible on console, but it's a lot more convenient on a computer). I already have a pretty high-end gaming machine, and it's going to keep for years to come; a new XBOX is going to be an investment of several hundred dollars. I can easily access Indie games, demos, and information. I'm not restricted to the community that Microsoft pushes with Live; I can participate in Steam, Origin, or ignore the artificial communities entirely and just use Skype or Vent to keep up with my gaming buddies.

Consoles are trying to become PCs with every ounce of strength. Microsoft's redesign of the Dashboard and their vision for W8 are clearly intentionally similar, which I take to mean that they want to blur the line between gaming machine and personal computer. We already have modular consoles with "premium" features (bigger memory stores, for example). It won't be long before other components can be swapped out, and then there won't be much difference left.

Games which are developed with multiple platforms in mind have proven to be able to be of high quality (see the latest XCOM). Afterthought ports have historically sucked. I dream of a world where game developers push out their software on every available platform and don't hamstring themselves by focusing on one, then disseminating.

Just as an aside, I own a 360, Wii, and PS3, but the only one of those we got anywhere close to release was the Wii. My computer is something I will always have because I use it for things other than games.

Aside from 360 reliability-- which is and continues to be a HUGE issue (one I had in reserve just broke last week, way out of warranty, already repaired once) what is the objection that PC gamers have to the console? Is it the expense? Living room space? What?

For most genres, if given the choice I would play any given game on the PC (or Mac in my case, via an OS X version or virtualization). Whether Destiny is an MMO with FPS elements, or an FPS with MMO elements (more likely given Bungie's explanation), either genre is generally more preferable on the PC. For someone who is a fan of such genres, knowing they can't get the best possible experience is probably a little bit of a downer.

PC-only gamers tend to be of the opinion that:

A. Mouse and keyboard is such a superior input method that they are being physically and mentally tortured if they are ever put in a situation where they have to use anything else. Driving a car must be hell for them.

B. If they're not using the absolute most bleeding-edge hardware they can afford, their gaming experience is being somehow hampered. If they're not seeing the most pixels at the highest possible framerate, playing games is pointless.

Note: There is some hyperbole above. But this is basically it - PC-only gamers either believe very strongly in mouse/keyboard, or they feel they need the latest hardware. For many of them, both are true.

Aside from 360 reliability-- which is and continues to be a HUGE issue (one I had in reserve just broke last week, way out of warranty, already repaired once) what is the objection that PC gamers have to the console? Is it the expense? Living room space?

As narc postulated, cost and space are the two biggest issues. As a gamer on the go, it's more difficult to pack up a console than to bring a laptop with me.

To play PC games, one doesn't need the latest/best/most expensive video card on the market. However, I'd rather not be stuck using an 8 year old console GPU.

To address for the mouse/keyboard combo: I don't own a 360, but I actually prefer to use my 360 controller to play PC games.

I'm sure they've got statistics behind their decisision re: how bad it'll hurt business, so I can't make any wild claims about that. But I'm still peeved.

I'm curious as well.

China and Korea make up a huge portion of the MMO market, and even though Bungie says this isn't an MMO, it's got MMO elements which may appeal to players in asia. Of the top games in South Korea, 2 are RTS (WC3 and Brood War), and rest are MMOs of some kind. A game called Special Force is popular, and it's an MMOFPS game.

The thing is, consoles are not very popular in Korea or China, so by not making a PC version they are giving up a large part of the Asian market. Japan simply doesn't like to play Western style 3PS and FPS games, although this is slowly changing.

Bungie and Activision must feel that they can't reach this market, or else not making a PC version would seriously hurt sales worldwide.

As narc postulated, cost and space are the two biggest issues. As a gamer on the go, it's more difficult to pack up a console than to bring a laptop with me.

To play PC games, one doesn't need the latest/best/most expensive video card on the market. However, I'd rather not be stuck using an 8 year old console GPU.

To address for the mouse/keyboard combo: I don't own a 360, but I actually prefer to use my 360 controller to play PC games.

That being said, the PS4 looks like a great entry into the console world...