Is this correct? I'm so confused........

I don't think so... Alot of people fail to take into account that steam doesn't release sales numbers. So that 15% is only based on hard copy sales. Most people I know who didn't get the CE just bought it off steam to avoid going to the store and dealing with jerk employees. So I am extremely skeptical of that 15%

The love for the pc is well appreciated. Some of the features of skyrim were HEAVILY influenced by oblivion mods. (im looking at you archery). Also the pc has gotten a LOT of crap in the last few years. Shoddy ports , REALLY bad ui to use with mouse and keyboard. Its nice that they are being nice to the pc crowd. You got the remember that arena and daggerfall were pc EXCLUSIVES, and morrowind STILL has an active modding community on pc (at least thats my understanding i haven't goten around to playing my copy yet)

No. And don't be. All the sales figures that get bandied around =NEVER= include online sales such as Steam and Origin type games....which is where the bulk of PC game sales are these days. There are NDA clauses in the contracts that prevent sales numbers from being bandied around. That 15% is -only- what is sold in retail outlets. And you can go into those outlets and see exactly how much space PC games no longer have, as both M$ and Sony have very specific square footage requirements before they will let you sell their games. PC gaming has been on the increase the past couple of years (mainly due to the age of the main consoles, and their limited capabilities). And neither Sony or Microsoft have plans to replace them anytime soon. Their hardware is a loss leader; it takes years of sales to even break even. The money is in the software liscencing fees they impose. According to an Nvidia survey, PC is projected to reclaim the #1 platform spot around 2015, assuming nothing changes drastically. Developers are expressing more and more frustration being throttled back by DX-9c and the DOS level memory pool in current game appliances.

The actual sales figures are anybody's guess. Considering how PC games are marginalized in retail outlets, I'd double that 15% to get into the ballpark of what the actual PC game sales are. And that frankly could still be low......

...I would say someone is reading too much into statements made.

Beth already has a hit to it's support over not meeting it's January deadline on the CK... to say: "It's coming out Tuesday, we set a date this time" and then not do it would be rather low class (Not to mention strange) for them.

Yes, it would be strange because Beth tends to stick to firm, set in stone dates. No, that doesn't include: "Probably be" preceding statements made with announcements.


Also, to say Beth shouldn't appeal to the PC crowd, because it looks to be a smaller demographic... Really? Beth originated on PC. It would be salting and firing a field, if they went out of their way to offend PC Gamers. Also, PC Gamers are the loudest and most obnoxious demographic it seems. You want to keep the most vocal and venomous people in line, elsewise your setting yourself up for issues down the road.

The game prior to v1.4 struggled to make much use of your video card as the CPU was too bogged down from other tasks, increasing the resolution of textures everywhere would result in more work for the HDD and maybe increase the amount of work involved in portraying shadows on the textures (Further increasing CPU load).

Also it took 3 years to make, computer technology improves incredibly fast and during that time span hardware improved a [censored] ton, re-testing and re-optimizing the game on current hardware available once they finished the game would have been incredibly dumb and serve no purpose other then to delay the PC port for several months pissing off fans.

Did they ever offer a further explanation on integrating mods into steam. I remember reading something about that on the nexus a couple months ago. How that system will work could be part of the ck launch.

I hope it's an announcement on the upcoming dlc.

It would be weird to announce DLC with the release of the CK because PC players will have to wait a month for it to come out. It seems strange to announce something that PC players can't get but Xbox players can with the release of the PC CK for "our Skyrim PC fans".

As has been said, very doubtful. Check out the poll on this very forum: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1252690-skyrim-community-poll/

That seems to blow the whole argument of PC customers being only 15% of the market out of the water.

It's obvious why a texture pack would be timed to coincide with the PC-specific distribution system they've put a lot of effort into.

I hope it is console related...

Those kind of polls are generally not very reliable.

I would recommend looking at VGCharts, while keeping in mind that it does not include digital distribution sales.

According to VGCharts' 2011 numbers for Skyrim, it sold about 10 million copies (9.99). The Xbox 360 sold about 5.2 million. The PS3 sold 3.07 million. And finally the PC sold 1.72 million, or 17.2%. Now, remember that those numbers don't include sales through Steam or other digital distribution sites. It's estimated that digital distribution accounts for 50%-70% of all PC sales. So, the PC verion actually sold somewhere between 3.44 million (30%) to 5.73 million (40%).

Then keep this in mind. When a 360/PS3 version is sold, Microsoft/Sony takes a $10 cut. Then the store takes their cut. Then there's the cost of manufacturing and transporting. It all cuts into the profit margin. For the PC version, 50%-70% of all copies sold were digital. Sold for the same $60, Steam took it's cut (not sure how big), but the rest is pure profit.

WOAH finally! If DLC was revealed, orgismic measures would be called for. 'nough said

ya really think theyll up the poly count? That would be nice especially with texture enhancement

Well "a special surprise with it" suggests, via use of the word "with," some relation to "it." That's usually how English works. That doesn't mean it is indeed related, but it does make preemptive complaining slightly dumber than usual.

Maybe we'll get really lucky and it'll be Todd Howard's resignation letter.

Well, for one, the game engine wouldn't need any "overhauling", and for two, a lot of those assets are probably already available in some form to the developers. I'm also curious where this 15% figure came from.

That said, I'm skeptical too. The picture the entire rumor is based on doesn't have any real backing or explanation to it. Either way a texture pack is a realistic guess for the "surprise" and TBH the game really needs it. Just look at the textures for some of the game's clothing. It's blatantly obvious some things are just flat out lower res than others for no reason, to the point where it actually looks like they messed something up with the final versions of the archives before release. Look at the difference in texture quality between Steel Armor and Ebony or Hide Armor for a decent example. This kind of mess wasn't present in Oblivion or Fallout 3.

Considering that, not all the game's textures would need to be made "high res" they would just need to bring the lower res ones in line with others, possibly by using whatever ones they intended to pack with the game in the first place. Overall making the idea of a texture pack pretty plausible.

A DLC announcement this early would be very strange, and consoles get that stuff first anyway. Bundling that kind of news together with the CK wouldn't make much sense. PC users don't particularly care about DLC right now before patches and the CK, and console users probably don't care much about the CK.

See my post. People fail to realize that digital downloads are not included in sales data.

I'm curious, why does the PC community need a hi-res texture pack?Is it not inevitable that the modding community will release several hi-res texture packs as they did for Oblivion?It seems redundant is all.I'm hoping it's DLC personally, something we can all enjoy.

Because it's a lot easier, cleaner, and most importantly better looking to have the original high res textures than it is having a modder upscale existing textures or substitute textures that don't go to the game but are "similar" looking.

And we can all enjoy it. On the PC.

And if it's DLC, it better sure as hell be free, because they haven't earned the right to charge for DLC yet as far as I'm concerned. That comes after they fix the current game.

I don't think it will be a DLC because XBOX users get the DLC 30 Days in advance to PC and PS3 users, it will mostly be a hi-res texture pack or maybe some custom armor skins for PC users to play with.

They're already being released. Some are very good, some are not. One thing that they often don't do, though, is keep with the original palette or tone. So it would be nice to have an official one that maintains it.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/468608982361041904/18236669E6E7A1D606B2AAF73AD13FEFB65D7203/ is why.

Depending on the community to make the hi-res texture package? yeah right. It will take years before people begin working together to retexture everything so that everything is consistent with each other. All we'll have for the first year or 2 is several individual small texture packs and you can't mix and match or anything without things looking way out of place and bleh.

Upscaling the existing textures can work but I quite often find that the end result is just super high contrast existing textures that hurt to look at. Also it definitely won't take any effort from Bethesda to provide the original textures other then to upload them somewhere as the game can already be modified with new textures... they can simply take advantage of the existing methods they've developed for texture replacement.