CDPR has given their official reply. The gameplay experience will be the best on all platforms (you can refer it to as same). Just don't think you on PC platform is that great compared to others. Consoles is what makes money folks.
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Yeah that is true, the majority of the money will be made on consoles and so those determine the end product for all.
Well, I'm not so sure about that. This is still an RPG an RPGs are traditionally strong on PC with a big userbase in Europe. Most games that sell millions on consoles are action games and shooters but not RPGs.
Skyrim for example has officially just about 15% sold on PC but that usually only counts physical disc releases. PC is pretty much digital only now in many countries so you can add a lot to that number. Todd Howard himself stated that Bethesda is very happy with the PC sales for Skyrim and that they never thought about not making games on PC anymore.
Witcher in particular has a very strong fanbase on PC, especially in central and eastern Europe with traditionally high PC userbase (while TES is US-centric with a traditionally high Xbox userbase).
If we just look at the CE preorders, PC was the most demanded, closely followed by PS4 and Xbox falling behind. That should be indication enough that the European market is much more important for Witcher than the US market (which is more action oriented after all) and that PC still has a very strong position here.
@LordCrash I wonder about that, TW3 has enough hype to be seen as a Skyrim like release size wise (and that did great on consoles). That combined with the fact that it releases on two consoles and I think that the majority of the sales will be made there. There are ofcourse enough sales on pc to make that version worthy of releasing but it is only logical to facilitate for the ones that rake in the majority of the funds. Maybe I am underestimating pc digital sales though.
I'm still unclear on what features you thought MIGHT be present on PC but not consoles. This isn't a game where skills and abilities impact on the UI, Geralt will still have his signs and swordplay skills regardless of what you're playing on. What will vary may be the graphic effect when you use that sign, but it will still kill his enemy in the same way.
The reward for a high-end PC will be better graphics for the same framerate, or better framerate with the same graphics. But the minimum specs player should get a good enough framerate to play the same game as the person with the high-end system. This isn't a compromise, or catering for the lowest dominator, or anything to do with consoles - isn't it the way PC games have always been?
Witcher 3 is only interesting to many US people BECAUSE it's compared to Skyrim. Usually there isn't a big interest in the US for European RPGs (Gothic, Risen, Two Worlds, Witcher were all very popular in Europe but only partially in the US)...
The problem with sales figures nowadays is that they are console-centric and disc-centric. Steam for example usually doesn't release sale figures for particular games. If you read some sales figures on the gaming press anywhere they are almost surely based on physical sales only. It's not a big surprise that PC doesn't look that good there since PC gaming have become almost completely digital-only in many countries in the past 5 years. For every physical disc sold on PC you could probably add 2 or 3 digital copies which never appear in any official sales statistics released by the console-orientiented gaming press...
PC is also much stronger in the long run. On console you have to sell as many copies as possible in the first two weeks. After that people will mostly just buy used copies for which you don't earn anything as a developer. On PC instead you can even sell games years after release. Of course on budget/sale but you still earn money and almost all of these long run sales are digital (and again never appear in most official statistics)...
@Dragonbird you are right and yet it seems like the relative advantage to having a high end pc seems very small in the case of TW3. Based on CD Projekt their statements on trying to deliver identical experiences there is not much change of ultra being an eye opener so to speak. I am sure that high end will have it's reward but right now it appears to be a small one.
To a large extent, I agree with you, which is one reason we've been trying to avoid telling people they need extremely high-end PCs in the "Can I run this?" thread. The graphics quality is a personal preference. For some people, it's important to have the best possible graphics, and the cost is justified for them. For others, it isn't. I'm somewhere in the middle - there'll be a price break where the improvement per dollar becomes fairly low, and I'll stop there.
What I do consider important though is the other half of the debate - the UI/Menus. This isn't so much to do with console vs PC, or high-end PC vs minimum specs, but about controller vs K&M. (And support for various types of controller). Designing the game with a single UI will usually result in a poorer experience for one group of players (and that usually means K&M nowadays).
This is where I really want CDPR to get it right.
I agree 100%.
We shouldn't forget neither that engine and graphics don't really scale directly with raw performance like many people expect. High-level stuff like fur simulation, liquids simulation, hair simulation, more tesselation, anti-aliasing, better shadows, better lightning, additional effects and FX and stuff costs a lot of performance but add only "little" to the overall graphics. Some might enjoy these "little" details and wouldn't want to miss them while other don't ever really take notice of them. The problem with PC hardware is that the increase in prices for high-end stuff doesn't equal the increase in overall graphical fidelity. The prices of hardware go up almost linearly while the additional graphical fidelty (even with almost "perfect" optimization) goes only up in a concave curve. Imo that's one of the reasons why many high-end customers are almost always "disappointed" with what they get in games. That's not only the fault of developers "not catering to high-end PC users" imo....
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I agree with you. I will wait and see what surprises for PC gamers on the UI/Menus and most important K&M experience. But i'm not surprised if there isn't much differences vs the consoles. In the TW3 i don't think there will be much differences on skills/spells/abilites as Witcher games are not like old school RPGs that has 100 over spells like Baldur's Gate. Refer to my previous comment on consoles gaming, it did impact the gaming on PC gaming experience overall as it's not feasible on the controller to have 30-40 skills compared with consoles on controller. Again i'm stressing it will not impact The Witcher 3 but perhaps maybe slightly.
I'm really curious now if K&M (PC users) will have any fair treatment (if any?) or we have the same experience (game play best with Controllers) after reading Marcin's reply.
Those effects aren't only a little improvement. The difference between with and without them is very impressive.I agree 100%.
We shouldn't forget neither that engine and graphics don't really scale directly with raw performance like many people expect. High-level stuff like fur simulation, liquids simulation, hair simulation, more tesselation, anti-aliasing, better shadows, better lightning, additional effects and FX and stuff costs a lot of performance but add only "little" to the overall graphics. Some might enjoy these "little" details and wouldn't want to miss them while other don't ever really take notice of them. The problem with PC hardware is that the increase in prices for high-end stuff doesn't equal the increase in overall graphical fidelity. The prices of hardware go up almost linearly while the additional graphical fidelty (even with almost "perfect" optimization) goes only up in a concave curve. Imo that's one of the reasons why many high-end customers are almost always "disappointed" with what they get in games. That's not only the fault of developers "not catering to high-end PC users" imo....
Well, that depends on the individual. To some people even the difference between 720p and 1080p isn't all that big. And I don't meant it as a comparion between "having nothing" and "having all", but step-wise. There isn't a big graphical fidelity increase if you put your shadow slider from high to ultra in most games and probably for most people. But it costs a lot of performance because ultra shadows need another complex algorithm. That's what I tried to say. Of course a game with everything enabled on ultra looks better than a game with everything on low, that's out of question. But on the top the differences aren't that big anymore. The graphical fidelty increase between "low" and "very high" is in most cases much more obvious than between "very high" and "ultra". That's because "little" differences cost a lot of additional performance.
Well, of course console games influenced PC games. Offering the same UI and stuff in multiplat games seems to be practial and cost effective to many companies - but it's (fortunatelly) not an imperativ yet.
The best example is still Diablo 3 imo. It's a game with a lot of skill and stuff and the PC version looks and plays very differently than the console version. The console version has a completely different UI than the PC version and also the game is really customized to the respective platform. You can really see and feel that the mouse is the primary control on PC while it's of course a controller on console.
First: PC UI (inventory)
Features:
- small icons
- typcial X icon in the corner for exit
- pattern/icon based inventory
- sliders/scrolldown menus
- PC hotkeys integration/hotkey bar
- seperated "single" UIs (just inventory here)
- mouseover effects/information
- drag and drop mechanics
Second: console UI (inventory)
Features:
- big icons
- hotkey exit
- list based inventory
- ring menu
- unified UI (inventory+quests+journal+...)
- place for additional information needed
As you can see Blizzard really put a lot of thought in both UIs, trying to cater to each primary control input as good as possible. A traditional experience with the mouse on PC is just different than the one with a controller on console and Blizzard accepted that and integrated two completely distinctive UIs in Diablo 3 based on the platform/primary input.
I don't think that Witcher 3 should offer the same to the same extend but I think it's worth to mention that mouse and gamepad experiences are different and that a unified "most common denominator" solution offen ends in the PC controls being clunky. The reason is quite simply: your options with a controller are much more limited than with keyboard and mouse in terms of UI. You can make every gamepad-based UI working with a mouse and keyboard but not the opposite. That's what happened to a great extend in TW2 and it's the same with the latest TES games. They are basically console menus, slightly adapted to also be able to control them with mouse and keyboard. The Diablo 3 example shows quite well that this isn't the only option and also not necessarily the best option (but of course perhaps the cheapest version...)
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Actually Lord Crash made a good point. PC gaming is held back by consoles. Not only by visual/graphics features. Think about in a city, you have few hundreds people in the town hall AC:Unity for example, i'm sure it probably rendered on 3xSLI 780TIs or something, But if on consoles? Due to hardware limitation, it could probably render 20-30 people in town for example.
So what this has got to do with PC you say? Game plays BEST on all platform MEANS PC will have 20-30 people compared to 100. Tell me this is not holding back PC gaming?. Again the 20-30 people vs 100 is just for sake example.
PC will always be on the lowest denominator simply because if people put up a video on next-gen consoles vs PC, they will start questioning why PC is more immersive? Our consoles is NEXT-GEN for god's sake!. You get the gripe
So what this has got to do with PC you say? Game plays BEST on all platform MEANS PC will have 20-30 people compared to 100. Tell me this is not holding back PC gaming?. Again the 20-30 people vs 100 is just for sake example.
PC will always be on the lowest denominator simply because if people put up a video on next-gen consoles vs PC, they will start questioning why PC is more immersive? Our consoles is NEXT-GEN for god's sake!. You get the gripe
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If you look at it that way, anyone that does not have a dual Titan and an i7 4900 is holding back PC gaming. The truth is CDPR has to target low end machines, whether they are making a console version or not.Actually Lord Crash made a good point. PC gaming is held back by consoles. Not only by visual/graphics features. Think about in a city, you have few hundreds people in the town hall AC:Unity for example, i'm sure it probably rendered on 3xSLI 780TIs or something, But if on consoles? Due to hardware limitation, it could probably render 20-30 people in town for example.
So what this has got to do with PC you say? Game plays BEST on all platform MEANS PC will have 20-30 people compared to 100. Tell me this is not holding back PC gaming?. Again the 20-30 people vs 100 is just for sake example.
PC will always be on the lowest denominator simply because if people put up a video on next-gen consoles vs PC, they will start questioning why PC is more immersive? Our consoles is NEXT-GEN for god's sake!. You get the gripe
Well, not really "low-end" but at least "mid-level". It would be cool if people should actually have hardware on par with next-gen consoles to even be able to play the game. Just like Doom back in the days which forced you to buy a CD-drive. That would bring technology one step forward (but of course it wouldn't be so good for sales probably)...
I'll wait for the day when next-gen console graphics equal "low" graphics settings on PC.
Well all this does have a plus side to it. TW3 on pc might not look that different to the console versions and the experience might be based on console limitations but it does make for a game that will not have crazy high requirements and more people get to enjoy an optimised experience.
Not anymore as Next-Gen can have equivalent graphics. It's just at lower resolutions and framerate. Diablo 3 is first and foremost made for PC gamers first. It's awesome they have the PC UI (screen inventory). Now look at TW3 inventory.. tell me if they will be the same for PC?Well, not really "low-end" but at least "mid-level". It would be cool if people should actually have hardware on par with next-gen consoles to even be able to play the game. Just like Doom back in the days which forced you to buy a CD-drive. That would bring technology one step forward (but of course it wouldn't be so good for sales probably)...
I'll wait for the day when next-gen console graphics equal "low" graphics settings on PC.
. So much for a PC centric developer? Or now multiplatform centric?We don't know. They once said in 2013 that there will be a different UI made for the PC version but we haven't heard anything about that in the last weeks and months. So everything is pure speculation.Not anymore as Next-Gen can have equivalent graphics. It's just at lower resolutions and framerate. Diablo 3 is first and foremost made for PC gamers first. It's awesome they have the PC UI (screen inventory). Now look at TW3 inventory.. tell me if they will be the same for PC?
Next-gen is nothing else than last-gen, just with better hardware. But next-gen consoles are not on par with latest PC tech. You still can't display most games on console with sophisticated anti-aliasing on 1080p. Same is true for advanced physics or lighting effects. And sorry, playing a game on 4k is a great graphical difference to playing the game on 1080p or 900p. Same is true for the framerate if you play a fast-paced game...
Yeah, I actually didn't mean to say that the consoles are low end PCs, just that CDPR a has to target low end hardware regardless. I agree with you though, there was a time where we had developers targeting specs that didn't even exist yet. I suppose uber sampling in W2 was like that, even now it really drops my fps.Well, not really "low-end" but at least "mid-level". It would be cool if people should actually have hardware on par with next-gen consoles to even be able to play the game. Just like Doom back in the days which forced you to buy a CD-drive. That would bring technology one step forward (but of course it wouldn't be so good for sales probably)...
I'll wait for the day when next-gen console graphics equal "low" graphics settings on PC.
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