Explaining Destiny's reliance on current-gen systems for success, and hope for PC version

Destiny is a game that’s backed by a decade-long deal between Activision and Bungie, and the budget of a game of this ambition launching on four consoles has to be monstrous.

"There are no scenarios where you're gonna make something that's that high production value and that compelling and that deep and rich and interesting with that many different modes of play that's not gonna be a scary proposition," Erik Hirshberg, the CEO of Activision Publishing, told Polygon.

"Of course, if you're not doing things that make you nervous in a creative profession, you're probably not doing it right."

This is why so many large titles are shipping across so many consoles; the larger the budget, the more you want to spread the game across as many platforms as possible. A project the size of Destiny does not make financial sense as a purely next-gen product.

"It's great to see the next gen hardware is off to such a strong start and both the Xbox One and PS4 are well ahead of where their predecessors were at this point … but if you just woke up today and looked at where people are gaming, the majority of people are still on the legacy hardware," Hirshberg said.

His answer for whether it would have worked as a purely next-gen product was simple: "Not yet."

"My hunch is most [players] have plans to upgrade when they can to one of the new platforms. But they haven't yet, so you can't ignore the install base that's still playing on the last gen," he continued.

His answer for whether it would have worked as a purely next-gen product was simple: "Not yet."

The game is going to see extensive post-launch support, and in a 10-year period there will of course be sequels, so there is a question about whether Destiny will allow you to transfer game saves from current generation systems like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 onto the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. "There are announcements coming on that so let me get back to you," Hirshberg said.

Destiny would also work very well on the PC, although no PC version of the game has been announced yet.

"It is [a good fit], and it's something we're talking about and looking at very carefully, and obviously it makes a lot of sense with the genre and the type of game it is," Hirshberg stated.

"Again, no announcements, but it's something that's a heavy point of discussion. And you asked how are we dealing with the complexity of developing for so many platforms, how about one more on top of that?" he continued.

"You know, developing on PC is a different animal than developing for consoles and so we just want to make sure that we're putting one foot in front of the other and getting it right, and that it's of the highest possible quality. But obviously I see the same things about the natural fit."