Load the Game

Sony is treating Destiny like a first-party game

• Egon Kilin
• September 9th, 2014

Developer Bungie’s sci-fi first-person shooter – Destiny – has just been launched on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Even though said FPS is available on both Sony’s and Microsoft’s current/last-generation consoles, because Sony heavily invested in its own versions (i.e. bought exclusive rights for marketing and timed-exclusive downloadable goodies), the Japanese giant treats Destiny like a full-blown first-party title.

“We’re treating it, for all intents and purposes internally, as if it’s a first-party release,” says Sony UK boss Fergal Gara. “We’re wrapping our arms around it on all levels of the organisation. It’s a special project and an important project and it has the power to launch Christmas. It’s hugely important.” More than that, Sony sees Destiny as a great system-seller, with the £349 PS4 Destiny bundle being the main attraction – “I think a lot of people are going to decide now is the time to go and buy a PlayStation 4 because this very ambitious project has come along that looks exciting,” Gara continues.

The UK boss also expects this week to be the biggest one in terms of PlayStation 4 sales since December 2013 – “I see it as the launch pad for the whole festive season. It comes nice and early in the season. People will go out and get a new console and then they’ll want more games to play on it. It really does kickstart the market for ourselves, retailers and publishers alike.”

Destiny is set seven hundred years into the future in a post-apocalyptic setting following a prosperous period of exploration, peace, and technological advancement known as the Golden Age. However, an event simply known as “the Collapse” had brought the end of the Golden Age, and mankind on the brink of extinction. Upon mankind’s first attempt to repopulate and reconstruct after the Collapse, it is discovered that hostile alien races have occupied its former colonies and civilizations, and are now encroaching upon “the City”. Players take-on the role of a “Guardian”, and is tasked with reviving the Traveller, all-while investigating and destroying the alien threats before humanity is completely wiped out.