Activision have revealed that they will be having a public beta for Bungie’s Destiny in July. The news came through Activision’s latest financial call, where it was also revealed that the Beta would be coming to PS3 and PS4 first, with Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions to follow.

Of course Activision and Bungie will be aiming to drum up as much publicity for the game as they possibly can having stated that there will be no less than a whopping $500-million spend on Destiny, which includes “marketing, packaging, infrastructure support, royalties and other costs,”  as well as the development itself, naturally.

It’s a massive risk on Activision’s behalf, especially when you consider, with all due respect, that Bungie has technically only ever had one truly big success: Halo. Outside of that they’re an unknown, unproven.

It’s also a risk that must, on some level, be worrying them a touch, as the barrage of previews for Destiny that arrived last month were…tepid, as was the response from gamers reading them. Sure, there were some journalists who utterly loved it and others that really were not impressed in the slightest, but overall the reaction was…meh. It was fun, but nothing special.

Having said that it was also reported that Bungie’s press event skimped heavily on just about everything. Responses during interviews were apparently heavy on buzz-words, vague and even evasive, while the demo journalists got to play was limited. It was, then, Activision aiming to get a small publicity booster before E3 hits, rather than they attempting to actually give anyone an idea of how good Destiny will be. Maybe that’s a smart thing. Maybe all they want to do  is sell the game on the fact that it’s Bungie making it along. And man are they going to have to sell a lot of copies to recoup that investment.

It is a little unclear as to whether that $500-million is just for Destiny alone, or whether that’s the planned budget for the 10-plan that Activision and Bungie have in place for the series, with an initial chunk used for the creation of the first game and smaller amounts to be used for each successive year when the developed technology and assets can be reused. Keep in mind that technology created during Destiny’s development can also be used in other games