‘Destiny’ Playstation Beta Dates, Exclusive DLC Content Has Xbox Fans Threatening To Pull Support

Bungie announced Monday that the Destiny beta dates for the PS4 and PS3 are twice as long as the Xbox One and Xbox 360. It was also revealed that the two Playstation platforms will receive timed exclusive content for the expansion packs for at least a year. Understandably, this news has upset Xbox fans and they’ve been active on social media forums denouncing Activision’s exclusivity plans.

The irony in this news is that timed exclusive content is nothing new for Activision or the Playstation and Xbox consoles. Call of Duty is probably the most infamous of timed exclusives as it has provided the Xbox platforms all DLC since Modern Warfare 2 a full month before the PS4, PS3 or PC. Meanwhile, the Battlefield franchise gives its DLC to the PS4 and PS3 a week before the Xbox One or Xbox 360.

However, Sony and Activision have heavily played up the Destiny on the PS4 and PS3 to the point where it has almost been advertised as exclusive to the consoles. As a matter of fact, the game will be exclusive to Playstation in Japan.

The PS4 and PS3 beta Destiny dates that were announced today gives the consoles access from July 17 through July 26 with a two day break starting July 21 for maintenance. The Xbox One and Xbox 360 will not receive the beta until July 23 and ends on July 26 too. That’s eight days of beta for the Playstation consoles versus only four for the Xbox systems.

Meanwhile, it was announced that the first two expansion packs will include exclusive content until at least the Fall of 2015. There’s no word on what that exclusive content will be but it’s likely to be similar to the launch content of extra costumes, weapons, multiplayer map and a Strike map.

This news drew the ire of Xbox fans across the internet starting with these pair of comments from Forbes contributor Jason Evangelho. (Disclosure: I used to write for VideoGameWriters.com, which Jason founded.)

So #Destiny has exclusive DLC within its DLC (for PS3/PS4), but it’s priced the same for Xbox/PlayStation. Interesting.

— Jason Simulator 2014 (@killyourfm) July 7, 2014

I *think* this means Xbox #Destiny players are literally getting less content for the same price. Slippery slope, Activision…

— Jason Simulator 2014 (@killyourfm) July 7, 2014

From there, comments became more irate with some calling for Xbox owners to cancel their pre-orders.

“BUNGIE DAY, TRULY A DAY FOR THE FANS!” Less you own an Xbox, in which case you’re treated as estranged children from Bungie’s 1st marriage.

— Cortana (@EmpressCortana) July 7, 2014

You know this whole exclusivity thing for Destiny wouldn’t be so bad if PS4 & Xbox got different but equally cool content simultaneously. — Cortana (@EmpressCortana) July 7, 2014

You know, day one sales mean worlds to publishers. You want to get your message to Bungie and Activision? Cancel your Xbox Destiny preorder.

— Cortana (@EmpressCortana) July 7, 2014

Over on Reddit, justanothero wrote this missive decrying the treatment of Xbox fans.

If you don’t think this is a big f*** you to xbox one fans. Then i dont know what to tell you.

PS got alpha and a longer beta, we get 1 day of downloading and 2 days of praying the servers don’t crash, aren’t too full, aren’t laggy. and clearly the 26th is the day they want to Stress test the servers. Having done several Betas including a couple bungie betas. I know how this goes. Too many people trying to download the game at once, too many people trying to log in/create at once. and then too many players on the servers at once. Some ass hat figures out a glitch that crashes the servers/zones they gotta take it down to patch it. This is what beta testing is all about, and 3 days is not enough to properly test the coding of the game, it is however long enough to give players a taste of the game and say you were being fair to both systems by letting them in a beta test.

Similar comments were made on the popular gaming forum NeoGAF. Omega Rex said:

Ha. okay

I’m skipping this. Alpha was fun but I just can’t support sh** like this. This is Ubisoft tier.

Meanwhile, RoboPlato wrote:

For some reason exclusive content related to DLC bothers me more than it does in the main game. For the main game it’s usually just some cosmetic stuff or BS thrown together for advertising purposes but in DLC it’s just a middle finger to players who are willing to give you more money than the base game costs.

And that was just the first few comments in the NeoGAF thread and all of the comments are just a small sampling of what has been seen from various social media outlets. The comments in Bungie’s official Destiny beta announcement is another good source to see complaints about the beta dates and exclusive content.

So what do you think of the timed exclusive beta dates and DLC content for the Playstation 4 and Playstation 3? Are Xbox fans right to be upset?