By David Curry on June 15, 2014 at 7:37am
Bungie has never been a fan of the PC platform. To this day, Bungie hasn't released "Halo 3" on PC and despite 343 Industries taking over development. The series continues to be an Xbox exclusive, more to lure the fans to the Xbox One than anything else. It is no surprise that Bungie decided their newest game, "Destiny" will also be a console exclusive.
The issue with "Destiny" is it offers an experience only PC gamers are familiar with at the moment. MMOs are still a core PC genre. Currently, no popular console game offers massively multiplayer maps or servers. The PS4 and Xbox One are both trying to bring these type of gamers to the console scene, but right now, MMO players still use PCs.
Locking Out the Masses
By making "Destiny" only available on consoles, Bungie is locking away the vast amount of people interested in MMOs. Some may be scarred from their many years of "World of Warcraft," but they are still interested in trying out new MMOs. "Elder Scrolls Online" showed the interest in new MMOs, but ZeniMax Studios' first entry in the MMO world didn't go down too well with reviewers or players.
Everything about "Destiny" works for PC: the multiplayer maps that connect quests, shared battles and open world adventures together offers hundreds of hours of stories and events. It's questionable why Bungie wouldn't bring this to PC. Bungie's offered chances to the Xbox 360 and PS3, two platforms that have never given MMOs the time of day, and their ability to even run the game at a decent framerate is questionable.
Another appealing feature of "Destiny" is it being a first person shooter. People forget that many FPS players use PCs despite the "Call of Duty" console numbers. "Planetside 2," "Team Fortress 2," and "Battlefield 4" have all shown a resounding lead on PC. The customization options and key bindings would make "Destiny" more playable on PC and allow players more accuracy when in PvE and PvP.
Possible Late Entry to PC
We are not completely in the dark when it comes to "Destiny" coming to PC. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said "Destiny on PC is a natural fit" but believes it will take the developers time to get it right. Why it would take Bungie longer to port the game on PC when the architecture for the next-gen consoles is based on the PC more than the last-generation Xbox 360 and PS3, which both run proprietary technology?
Bungie's own executives have said "Destiny" could arrive on PC sometime in the future. The developers appear to carry the same mantra as Rockstar Games, to release it first on consoles and then push it out to PC. There is a reason for this, even though PC might have the most responsive community, they are normally the least responsive in terms of money and have higher piracy rates than console, alongside cheaper prices for games.
Growth of MMO on Consoles
It is interesting to see multiple developers wanting to create MMOs and shared worlds on console, when time and time again these games have been cast away by console players. The architecture in the new consoles and emphasis on sharing and connecting with friends does allow developers new ways to connect with friends, without having to split the single player and multiplayer experience.
Offering this sort of shared world and unique multiplayer content brings more into what would otherwise be a large and barren landscape.
Tom Clancy's "The Division" and "The Crew" are two interesting "shared world" games coming from Ubisoft. "The Division" is getting a lot of hype due to its gorgeous graphics and third person shooting. The game will take place in post apocalyptic New York, while "The Crew," Ubisoft's racing game, will span across the entire United States. Both have new multiplayer integration techniques that make the world more lively and responsive.
"Destiny" might be the turn of the decade game in terms of console gaming; it already has hundreds of millions of dollars in backing from Activision and millions of pre-orders, but unless console gamers continue playing "Destiny" months and years after its official launch, Bungie will not be able to continue creating more content for veterans on the game. Bungie runs the risk of producing just one of the many MMO failures for PC.
Eurogamer GameSpot
