Console gamers are used to being unable to play online against others on competing platforms, thanks more to business arrangements than any underlying technical issues. But with Bungie's MMO shooter Destiny launching across two overlapping console generations, one might think that PlayStation 4 users could expect to be able to play against their friends using the PlayStation 3 through the PlayStation Network (or across the Xbox One/Xbox 360 divide using Xbox Live).

Even that kind of cross-platform play is not available in Destiny, though, a state of affairs that Bungie attributes to a sense of fair play across different gameplay resolutions.

“I’ll speak for the hypothetical player. I have a disadvantage sniping across the map because [my opponent with a next-gen console] is only two pixels on my screen and I’m four pixels on his," Bungie engineer Roger Wolfson told Digital Trends. "You see that in the world of PC gaming, where people are always racing to the best video card to give themselves the advantage."

Indeed, resolution's effect on gameplay performance has been a long-raging argument among PC gamers, who can never assume a truly level hardware playing field when playing online. Many players anecdotally report getting better aim on long-distance shots at higher resolutions, but a scientific study of 64 players by Worcester Polytechnic Institute found that "resolution has little impact on performance" in competitive first-person shooters (frame rate, on the other hand, did).

Even if the resolution difference doesn't give a practical advantage, the mere idea of playing Destiny against those on weaker hardware might give the appearance of unbalance, Wolfson said. "Regardless of where the reality is, there’s definitely a perception among gamers that better hardware means you have an advantage. We don’t want to have to enter that fray, so to create the best, most level playing field, both actually and perceptually, we separated it by platform."

Just because you can't compete directly across hardware generations doesn't mean there will be no connection between the various versions of Destiny, now and in the future. Players will be able to take the characters built on one console with them to later hardware, and even to future games in the series, Wolfson said. That could be important for a game that already has a ten-year franchise plan before its first full release.