Playstation Access posted their Tuesday video: a Q&A with DeeJ with questions pulled from the Community. It's a whopping 15 minutes long, go see if he answered the question you've been waiting for the answer to here.

Sad but not surprising

Sad but not surprising

I find it really strange that there were still people here who thought this was even a remote possibility.

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I find it really strange that there were still people here who thought this was even a remote possibility.

Eh, it wouldn't have shocked me if the Sony platforms had cross-gen play. Sony's relaxed policies in that regard are thought to be the big reason FFXIV made it to PS3 and PS4 but not Xbox.

Sad but not surprising

I find it really strange that there were still people here who thought this was even a remote possibility.

Because the barriers to it are all political rather than technical.

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Do you have the timestamp in the video where he says that?

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Sad but not surprising

So we have a game where you can't play with ¾ of the people playing it. So much for 'shared'.

We have a game that isn't even open world, but rather separate maps for strikes and missions. So much for 'world'.

All that's left is 'shooter'.

We have a game that isn't even open world, but rather separate maps for strikes and missions. So much for 'world'.

From NeoGaf:

Originally Posted by Mix

Urk: That being said, say if you're on earth and you jump into lets say Moth yard, then can you traverse the entirety of the surrounding areas? Could you make it all the way up to King's Watch and beyond?

It's continuous and connected, yup. In fact, the opening of the Strike is also connected and accessible in the same way. Rooster Teeth reported in running into a random boss before entering the strike proper. That's a public event, and you could tackle it with a mixed group comprised of players in the strike, playing campaign, and on Patrols.

Once you head into the Strike proper, it becomes private automagically.

Sounds open world to me.

The whole director thing is basically their quick travel system.

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Saying that there are absolutely no technical reasons that cross generation play wouldn't be implemented? It sounds like a coding nightmare; forget all the extra work going into making the game for four separate consoles.

Aren't the differences between the versions basically just graphical? I haven't heard of any gameplay differences.

I don't know about the Xbox specifically, but iI've heard a few different times about how different the architecture is between the PS3 and PS4; I imagine its the same between the 360 and X1.

Not to mention that the networking between generations is probably done on different sets of servers anyways. Barring the political branding issues, its probably about the same from 360-X1 as it is from 360-PS3.

I don't know about the Xbox specifically, but iI've heard a few different times about how different the architecture is between the PS3 and PS4; I imagine its the same between the 360 and X1.

I can confirm that 360 and X1 use VERY different architecture. The 360 used a PowerPC chipset, while the X1 uses AMD (specifically "Jaguar") architecture.

If you don't know what that means, the PowerPC chipset was the line of chips that Mac used BEFORE they were able to dual-boot into Windows, it was almost impossible to get Windows to run on a PowerPC chip without major emulation.

I don't know about the Xbox specifically, but iI've heard a few different times about how different the architecture is between the PS3 and PS4; I imagine its the same between the 360 and X1.

That affects getting them to run, not getting them to talk to one another.

Not to mention that the networking between generations is probably done on different sets of servers anyways. Barring the political branding issues, its probably about the same from 360-X1 as it is from 360-PS3.

If the servers have to be different by decree of the platform holders, that is political and not technical. Both the 360 and Xbone have web browsers that can talk to many different servers just fine. Getting one application (game) to talk to the same server on both systems isn't more challenging than simply getting them to work on both systems.

Aren't Bungie going to be running their own servers for Destiny though? Aren't most of the instances P2P?

Thinking about it a little more, I'm sure there might be concerns that PS4 gamers would have an advantage with higher resolution, richer images. A valid design concern... for competitive.

Then again, PC specs are all over the map and developers there still let everyone play with each other. So...?

That affects getting them to run, not getting them to talk to one another.

If the core system architecture is so different, why do you think it would be easy to get them to seamlessly connect to each other and run a big game like Destiny without hiccups?

If the servers have to be different by decree of the platform holders, that is political and not technical.

I mean that the PS3 PSN servers are probably different than the PS4 PSN servers, and most likely improved between generations.

Both the 360 and Xbone have web browsers that can talk to many different servers just fine. Getting one application (game) to talk to the same server on both systems isn't more challenging than simply getting them to work on both systems.

That's another broad oversimplification.

Aren't Bungie going to be running their own servers for Destiny though? Aren't most of the instances P2P?

The networking still has to be strung through Xbox Live and Playstation Network.

If the core system architecture is so different, why do you think it would be easy to get them to seamlessly connect to each other and run a big game like Destiny without hiccups?

Because the network protocols are still the exact same?

Because the network protocols are still the exact same?

Are they? Why would they be? The whole point of a new console is to improve, grow, move forward. I don't understand the assumption that both generations are using new base-level programming architecture but the brand new system is using networking methods that could be ten years old already.

My whole point is not to say it's impossible, but that it's careless to say "cross-generation play faces no technological hurdles or barriers." I'm sure if it was as easy as that, we would have seen it before.

Are they? Why would they be?

There's not a whole lot of reason to suspect that the networking models differ significantly. Although Destiny has a massive development team, you really don't want to do things differently on different platforms if you can reasonably avoid it. They certainly seem to have built the foundations of their graphical systems like that, at least; according to their SIGGRAPH presentation, the exact same 96 bit-per-pixel G-buffer format is used on all platforms, and that layout was heavily influenced by the seventh-gen console's capabilities.

Bungie is going to take advantage of the new platforms when it's easy to do so, but Destiny on PS4/XB1 is not designed exactly how it would be if it were strictly an eighth-gen game. Not that doing so would necessarily change the networking anyway, it's not like the internet itself changed into something totally different overnight.

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If the underlying game behaves deterministically equivalently on the differing machines, then there shouldn't be any large barrier to synchronous networking a la Halo's coop.

If it doesn't, but is still almost identical, asynchronous models like what's used in Halo's multiplayer might still work.

but maybe Sony and MS have added a layer on top to lock you in to their networks.

But the ability to escape from that could be created if there was the political will.

Because the network protocols are still the exact same?

Are they? Why would they be?

Because the internet. It's universality and interoperability is it's key strength.

The whole point of a new console is to improve, grow, move forward. I don't understand the assumption that both generations are using new base-level programming architecture but the brand new system is using networking methods that could be ten years old already.

Actually X86-64 has been around for over a decade. It's a 64 bit extension of x86 - which itself has been the dominant processor architecture in desktops for 30 years. The last gen of consoles used different ones because they were simpler and cheaper at the time. Now the trade-offs have changed and both Sony and MS just stuck with X86-64.

AFAIK, the most recent change to internet protocols has been the SLOOOW introduction of IPv6. Getting any further improvements over raw bit-rate increases would require the collaboration of a huge number of entities across literally the entire globe, would take years and billions of dollars. Not even MS has the clout to drive that through on their own.

Multiplayer online action games generally use the 'UDP' protocol - it's simple, quick, and fire-and-forget. Any further complications reduce performance and lessen the impression of it being real-time interaction.

My whole point is not to say it's impossible, but that it's careless to say "cross-generation play faces no technological hurdles or barriers." I'm sure if it was as easy as that, we would have seen it before.

Before, the leaps between console generations were much more significant at a base level of capability and cross-gen games didn't exist much. Now, the differences in capability is much less fundamental and Bungie themselves said they want you to have the full Destiny experience whatever generation you're playing on.