Serious gaming has its future mapped

Whilst most of the heat in gaming has gone to the likes of Farmville and Angry Birds and consoles look as if they have a limited lifespan, especially given that the new Nintendo Wii U has received a poor reception in retailers there is at least one reason why ‘serious gaming’ shouldn’t be written off yet. Bungie who are best known for their Halo series of games are actually some of the smarted people in the business with a heritage that goes all the way back to the Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete game from 1992 which allowed for multiplayer gaming over an AppleTalk network.

Bungie’s newly announced game Destiny is making some interesting decisions:

• Online gaming, but without masses of people in your game messing up your gameplay a la World of Warcraft
• Multi-screen gaming with players being able to keep with with the action whilst on the go
• Character customisation, game currency and in-game shopping

There’s likely to be life in console gaming yet, despite the rise of the smartphone and Facebook gaming platform.