I wonder if they had to trim skyrim down so that the graphics and content will work with the consoles because I'm sure the PC could handle much more than that, and this is why the game has to svck to compensate for what the crappy consoles can do.

Yes, most of today's games do this.

it must be such a high demand for better graphics. Really such a sad the direction for games. Better graphics, simpler system, less content. It must have something to do with software engineers, always trying to improve the speed, graphics, and make things easier. I like when windows runs like that but games need more I think.

Don't forget the older PC's that would have needed more upgrades.

Eh, pc gamers are only around 10% of total customer base and profit, so in the end, no one really cares if pc is underwhelming and not getting It's potential.

Now that was a rude a comment to post saying that console svck. I happen to have a ps3 and xbox 360. I happen to feel that the graphics are really nice.

There's already texture patches for the PC available if you need them. I personally don't care too much for graphics... even older games keep me entertained.

The majority of gamers are on consoles, and the PC drives the technology forward. Each of us needs the other for gaming to exist, yet everyone still loves to scream at the other because it's difficult to balance each of their needs. The "argument" is ridiculous.

It stupid all of this bytching is getting rather old.

Welcome to the club OP.
There is nothing worse than knowing, you should've remained ignorant.

I agree. I still get loads of enjoyment out of Morrowind.

On the Bioware forums the pc vs console war was horrible. The pc players were the worst with the flaming.

That's why on PC we have one thing consoles always lack, graphics options.

If you have a half decade old PC you can turn the settings off. If you have an uber PC you can turn the settings on.

However, the maximum graphics of Skyrim is still so low that renders the "graphics options" pretty much useless.

This, people either can't afford a high spec computer to play games like this. Or like me, feel it's such a waste of money as the game is brilliant on xbox.

Other games, like fifa, assassin's creed etc would be terrible on pc IMO. So many more decent people to play games with as well, thats the main reason I have an xbox.

I play the game on 1080p on xbox, the graphics are brilliant, how good do you want them to be? Just play the game and stop whining.

This argument is so old and inaccurate that I'll just quote a reply I made some weeks ago.

True there are more varied type of pc. Of what people kind of graphics each one can handle. So it is still surprising to see at time such rude and mean behavior from a pc player. I personally love my console games.

Skyrim does not "svck"

Please go play something you actually like. Life has x amount of minutes in it. Why would you waste any in a forum for a game you don't like?

I'm having a great time and I'm honestly sorry you aren't. Happy New Year.

I think that was a bit harsh, but I can't really disagree (and this is coming from an Xbox player). I think it's quite clear that most multi-platform games are designed with the Xbox 360 in mind, and the PS3 and PC usually get crappy ports. I just wish developers would stop focusing so damn much on graphics (for the consoles) and focus on other areas of the game. Instead of stripping things from the game, they should try to improve it and add more content. They should also take the time to port a game to other platforms properly.

This year, I only bought Skyrim and Saints Row: The Third. Both games look good and play fairly well on my Xbox, but it's clear to me that both games lost a lot of content. This is the era of good graphics (at least for Xbox games), which means other platforms and other areas of the game will suffer. It's a shame, really.

It doesn't matter how much of that 10% is just Skyrim sales, my point is of all the customers and profit they got from Skyrim, it was only 10% from the PC. In the end, it would be smarter to not even make it for the pc at all, save resources, time and wages on console and they could make up that 10% in just console sales.

If you cannot do maths, I'll count the numbers for you. We'll just use the data at the time of my quote(18th dec), as selling price is more accurate(at Christmas most retailers as well as Steam have cut the price down, so including the sales number during Christmas will be harder to get an accurate result).

At that time VGChartz showed 3.4m copies of xbox version sold, and 1.2m(not including digital version) of PC version sold.
Based on the reply I made above, as well as some assumptions, we'll calculate the revenue from PC vs xbox.

Two assumptions
1. Xbox version of the game is completely free of royalties, aka Microsoft gets zero money from the sales of Skyrim. This assumption is 100% impossible. Microsoft and Sony don't earn money by selling consoles(most of the times they sell the consoles at cost price), they earn money by getting royalties from softwares sold.
But since we cannot get an accurate number of royalty fee, we'll just make a favorable-to-xbox assumption.

2. Only half of the total PC sales of Skyrim are digital. The actual percentage of digital sales should be much higher, considering average PC games like The Witcher 2 has around 45% while this is a Steamworks game. But then, let's just make all the assumptions favorable to xbox and see what happens.

Now we can start ESTIMATING the revenue from xbox and PC. At that time most retailers as well as Steam are selling the game at full price(59.9, I know in some part of the world the price is higher while others it may be lower, but for simplicity's sake just assume this is the price for the whole world).

ESTIMATED revenue for Xbox: 3400000 copies x 59.9 x 30%(amount the publisher/developer get back when the game is sold at retail, not including console royalties)
=$61098000

ESTIMATED revenue for PC: 1200000 retail copies x 59.9 x 30% + 1200000 digital copies x 59.9 x 70%(amount the publisher/developer get back when the game is sold digitally)
=$71880000

From this estimation we can clearly see the revenue for PC is higher than Xbox. And this is not counting console royalties and assume the PC version only has 50% digital sales.
For Skyrim, it is no doubt that PC version constitutes a much higher percentage in revenue than people have guessed, probably the largest among the three platforms.

Saying the PC version only constitutes 10% of the total sales is a fallacy the developers often use so they can commit less to the PC.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. As for the PC gamers here, we all wish that Skyrim had been a PC game ported to consoles, rather than the other way around. Why is it now-a-days consoles get everything first, then they dump a horrible port on PC. Anyone remember that atrocious GTA IV port Rockstar released for PC? God, I loved GTA IV, but it's sad that a game like that could run perfectly on my Xbox and yet stutters on my brand-new, top-of-the-line PC. It's not that PC users are trying to be elitist, it's that we're getting the shorter end of the stick.

Porting to console from PC is simply a matter of streamlining controls and toning down graphics. Porting to PC from console involves actually making the controls more complex (mouse + keyboard = more buttons than controller) and cranking up the graphics, which is much more costly and time-consuming. Which is why companies who port from console to PC tend to drop the ball on the PC ports.

Yes, because graphics matter.

You have to consider, Bethesda is a business first and foremost, and they'd be idiot to spend five years developing Skyrim and cut out the largest chunk of the market, console gamers. For games like SW:TOR, it works, what with being an MMO and having a subscription fee, but Skyrim wouldn't be anywhere near as successful.