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Witcher 3 made possible thanks to the consoles

Development would have been scaled down if Wild Hunt was PC only.
Jonas Mäki Editor Sweden 22 May 2015

There's been a lot of talk about a downgrade in graphics in the recently released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Some people claim that it just doesn't have the same level of detail as it did when was first shown around its announcement.

Many blame the downgrade on the weaker consoles and say it would have been better looking if it was optimised for PC. But perhaps that isn't entirely true, and in an interview with the CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski, it was revealed that there wouldn't even be a Witcher 3 made to the same epic scale without the consoles:

"If the consoles are not involved there is no Witcher 3 as it is. We can lay it out that simply. We just cannot afford it, because consoles allow us to go higher in terms of the possible or achievable sales; have a higher budget for the game, and invest it all into developing this huge, gigantic world. Developing only for the PC: yes, probably we could get more [in terms of graphics] as there would be nothing else - they would be so focused, like if we would develop only on Xbox One or PlayStation 4. But then we cannot afford such a game."

So there you have it. No need to blame the consoles. PC owners have actually benefited from Sony and Microsoft's consoles rather than missing out.

Editor Sweden Jonas Mäki has written for Gamereactor since 2002, becoming an editor in 2007. He covers the video game industry across news, releases and the business side, with a particular interest in sales figures and where the industry is heading.
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