Reasoning Under Uncertainty (Destiny)

by RC , UK, Tuesday, July 08, 2014, 06:40 (3791 days ago)

Cooler heads today, yeah?

In the end, this exclusive content is pretty trivial stuff. The ones that really matter (the actual missions) will come to Xbox after a year anyway - more to look forward to. All the skins and weapons and emblems or whatever, and a few less Beta days won't matter amongst all the other stuff there is to do, find, collect and conquer in Destiny.

I say this as one of the lucky bastards who got in on the Alpha test and played it extensively: if you can have fun playing Destiny, you will have fun, and mountains of it, no matter what platform you play it in.

Is the games industry still messed up in many ways? Yes. This massive and mostly artificial divide between platforms is a huge inefficiency in the market and - as I see it - a problem that needs to be overcome sooner rather than later. For the benefit of players and developers certainly, but also potentially for the platform holders if they focused on growing the overall market. Anyway...

Bungie has to operate within that system to achieve their aims. The last time PlayStation saw a Bungie game was 13 years ago: ONI. PlayStation never saw Halo and likely never will.

Compared to never stepping into Cheif's shoes, never riding a warthog over the hills of Halo, never becoming the Arbiter and feeling a Plasma Sword in your hand, never dropping feet-first into New Mombasa, never landing an Aerial Assassination, never.... you get the idea. Stop looking into other people's cups and whining that they have more: Xbox will get topped up a bit later.

Or you could be a turncoat like me. N64-Xbox-360-PS4.

We knew at E3 last year that Sony/Bungie/Activision had a deal. We knew PS4 was the most powerful 8th gen system, the lead platform for Destiny, cheaper than Xbox One at launch. If the Ultimate Destiny Experience was your priority then PS4 was the platform to choose. If it wasn't, then you had to make a bet with the information available - like we all did.

For my part, I was also extremely put off by MS's Xbox One policies. I didn't just vent online: I actually went out and pre-ordered a PS4 in protest. That is your right and your power as a consumer. Money talks. And - oh look - MS has reversed everything I didn't like. Power of the People. Hey, the PS4 is still a great piece of kit.

So you made a bet on which platform to get Destiny for with incomplete information. Turns out that bet isn't as good as you thought it was. Happens all the time. You can certainly vent if you want, you can cancel pre-orders, and vow to never deal with Bungie again...

But I urge you: play the Beta anyway.

You'll realise these are anthills compared to the glorious mountain of fun that is Destiny. There will be no regrets. No tears. Only happiness and adventure.