I had a thought this morning (Yes, pre-second cup of coffee) when I was responding to a backwards compatibility thread in the Playstation United user group:
[b]Given that most, if not all, of the consoles are incapable of playing with each other, will we (The Community) be divided along hardware lines?[/b]
It's been confirmed that (Of course) Playstation users will not be able to play with Xbox users. But will it even be possible for PS4 users to play with PS3? Or 720 with 360? In answer to the first, probably not. Sony has already confirmed there will be no immediate backwards compatability with the PS3 (Gamewise) and I do believe that while PS3 runs off the PSN the PS4 will run off the new system called "Playstation World".
In answer to the second, we'll see if Microsoft carries over the original Xbox Live service to the new 720 platform. If they do, my concerns between the 360 and 720 could be baseless. If they don't....
In the past, with Halo and previous titles, we've always been able to share our experiences with everyone in game, due to a shared platform. (Or in the case of 90s games, PC/Mac dual releases) With Destiny, that's all going to change. And honestly? That's going to sadden me a bit. There's going to be several of you awesome gents I'm never going to be able to share the adventure with just because we chose different paths. (I'm leaning towards PS4 right now)
Not to mention it brings up other concerns: Will Bungie still host the "Play with Bungie" days? And if so, how will they cover all the potential consoles? :) I know there's 350 of you out there, but that's still a decently steep bill if we're talking about 3-4 seperate consoles.
Unfortunately all these questions just spawn more questions. Alas for Saturday morning ramblings.
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I guess I can see the issue with the Playstation after switching from Cell Architecture (which was a pain for many developers with the PS3) to an x86 architecture (which will be a lot easier for devs), but seems like an excuse by Sony to not work on backwards compatibility. I already will say that the 360 to the next Xbox will allow for backwards compatibility, as it doesn't have an overhaul on its architecture, and during the transition from Xbox to 360, people could connect to LIVE and play a game of Halo 2 despite them being on the separate consoles.