I’ve gotten to a point where I’m excited about the next gen consoles. It’s a very different transition than past generations. I plan to keep and be playing games on my Xbox 360 for years while concurrently running an Xbox One. I’m curious as to how Xbox Live will work across the two platforms. If I’m on One and my friend is on a 360, will I see that? Gamerscore is completely porting to the new console, but if I’m moving back and forth, will Xbox One achievements show up on the 360? Who knows? Microsoft probably doesn’t know. They have had, undoubtedly, the worst marketing launch to a major electronics product that I’ve ever seen. The cool thing is that since the horrid original rules, we’ve been receiving another rollback from the Xbox team almost weekly. They’re moonwalking this thing into the console I wanted…just without backward compatability. One criticism that can be fairly leveled is that their launch title list is thin. If you don’t like Dead Rising or Forza…there is not a game for you with tremendous buzz that is exclusively XBO. The newest thing that I’ve heard is that in order to try to make the $100 price gap between it and the Playstation 4, Microsoft is going to bundle a game with launch consoles. In Europe, it’ll be FIFA. I have nothing firm on North America, but I’ve heard Ryse (which would be cool since it’s the only “day one” game that interests me).
None of that has anything to do with Destiny, which is what I think of when I think next gen gaming. Destiny is going to move systems. A lot of them. These video documentaries that Bungie is releasing about the world building, weapons and character classes are fantastic. This is going to be the Xbox World of Warcraft (yeah, it’s on PS4 too, but I’m branded with an X). 2014 will see a lot of cool games hit stores as the developers get comfortable with the software, but Destiny looks like it could be as big a landmark as any game in this generation. I’ll keep these coming as Bungie keeps posting them; this one “Out in the Wild” looks at weaponry and the focus on building large, varying environments. It also puts to rest any fear that this is just a multiplayer game. There will be storyline quests you can do on your own. You can completely control to what extent people pop in and out of your experience. I’m psyched (and caffeinated if you couldn’t tell). Destiny will release in 2014 for Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
Killing Time 