Destiny May Possibly Come to Windows PC

By Kevin Parrish
published

In a brief interview with Polygon, Erik Hirshberg, the CEO of Activision Publishing, explained that it makes financial sense to expand a big-budget product across a number of devices. The more developers and publishers spend, the more lanes of revenue they need to cover. That's essentially why gamers are seeing new titles on both Xbox consoles and both PlayStation consoles.

"It's great to see [that] 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 pointed out.  

As seen at E3 2014, all four of Activision's titles – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Destiny, Skylanders: Trap Team and Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark – are on the two Xbox consoles and the two PlayStation consoles at the very least. In contrast, Ubisoft's four games on display – Assassin's Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, The Crew and The Division – were all slated for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. No legacy consoles were included.

The interview went on to talk about a PC version of Destiny. Currently, no such animal is officially in development. However, Hirshberg said that Destiny on the PC would be a "good fit," and is something the company is talking about and examining very carefully.

"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," he said. "But obviously I see the same things about the natural fit."

He stressed again that Destiny on the PC is "a heavy point of discussion." Currently, Destiny is slated to arrive on September 9, 2014, but perhaps we'll see the PC version hit store shelves sometime in 2015 if Activision gives it a green light.

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Kevin Parrish
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • atavax
    I am a PC gamer that's primary genre is multiplayer fps. I have a great respect for bungie, with what they have been able to do on consoles and i am sad that they have not yet made a PC shooter. I would love to be able to play one of their games on PC. But i don't want a port. Converting a shooter to PC isn't simply making it work with the hardware of the PC.
    Reply
  • r1Master
    As long as it is not another garbage port...
    Reply
  • sunflier
    Destiny on PC?? It's, its density. I mean its destiny.
    /yeah, I ported that from Marty McFly.
    Reply
  • ram1009
    Console makers are doing their best to cut their own throats so stay out of their way. For years all the talk was about how much simpler it was to develop a console game because the platform never changed. Now, both Sony & Microsoft have abandoned their own customers by making their new consoles & games incompatible with their old stuff. IMHO, that's very short sighted. The end result will be that devs now have two more platforms than they previously had. A win for PC gaming.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    ... can it really be that difficult to go from and x86 Windows 8 console to an x86 Windows 8 PC? I mean, sure it is hardly an automatic process... but we are not talking about nearly as big a leap as it would be between the two consoles.

    Somehow I assumed it was coming to PC this whole time. Somewhere in the original rumors it was mentioned that it was coming to both consoles and PC... I understand that they are rumors, but rumors today have become a science more accurate than quoting promises made by CEOs, so I sort of took it for granted.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    13525434 said:
    ... can it really be that difficult to go from and x86 Windows 8 console to an x86 Windows 8 PC? I mean, sure it is hardly an automatic process... but we are not talking about nearly as big a leap as it would be between the two consoles.

    Somehow I assumed it was coming to PC this whole time. Somewhere in the original rumors it was mentioned that it was coming to both consoles and PC... I understand that they are rumors, but rumors today have become a science more accurate than quoting promises made by CEOs, so I sort of took it for granted.

    That is the main benefit to the new consoles, porting becomes much easier. And from the XB1 it would be even easier since it is using a Windows 8 kernel and DirectX API. But that is the limit. Optimizations will be platform specific, especially since the XB1 uses the eDRAM tech that gives it a strange twist.
    Reply
  • jkhoward
    I will only play Destiny if it is released for the PC. I have never been a fan of console gaming.
    Reply
  • Realist9
    Well, I hope "easier to port" translates into something other than horrid controls, weaker graphics, and dumbded down game play. The list of horrible ports to the PC is much longer than ports done well.
    Reply
  • canadianvice
    I just want some original PC content. Keep the console garbage where it belongs. Barring GTA V (Rockstar still makes awful PC ports) as being decent only for the content, as the game will no doubt be a poor port with glitches, there's nothing put out on consoles worth having on PC. Invariably, I'll get a game that is poorly ported with poor support (consolites might stand for it, I won't.) with graphics toned down to run on some 3rd-worlder's pentium. I pay good money for my computer, I expect it should be taken advantage of.

    Frankly, there's not much put out on PC worth having either. The industry has fallen to milking old hits and the end result is you get a good game once every 5 years. That's why I like the indie scene. They're not nearly as inclined to milk an emaciated, though good-looking, cow to death.
    Reply
  • kawininjazx
    The PC is a great platform, but the consoles are dominating the market, devs are gonna make games for whatever will make them money.
    Reply