During its fiscal year 2017 financial presentation, CD Projekt RED’s Piotr Nielubowicz, revealed the sale percentages for The Witcher 3 per platform in the past three years. According to the graph, the PC version has surpassed each console version in 2016 and 2017.
Surprisingly enough, in 2015 the PS4 version of The Witcher 3 sold better than the PC version. Going into slightly more details, in 2015 around 48% of the game’s sales were coming from PS4 whereas 31% was coming from the PC. This is something we are hearing for the first time.
The PC was able to pass the console sales (per platform) in 2016 and in 2017. In 2016, 42% of the sales were coming from PS4 whereas 43% of the sales were coming from the PC. And in 2017, 35% of the sales were coming from PS4 and 50% were coming from the PC.
As Piotr Nielubowicz stated:
“This diagram shows two important information. Number 1. In 2017, The Witcher 3 has sold more than in 2016. We are extremely proud of that and it had impact on total sales of all (The Witcher) games which was 33 million of copies as mentioned by Adam. The second important information is that on the year of the release, 70% of sales were sales of console copies and slightly more than 30% were PC copies. The trend has been changing over time and PCs have the longest life cycle now. In 2017 50% of sales stem from PC copies and the other half was attributed to both consoles.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Well, I’m not surprised to see the sales of W3 falling off for the last 2 years on the Blur-Box One and Blur-Station 4. Those 2 consoles were outdated gaming hardware pretty much when they were released in late 2013. Especially the Blur-Box One. MS really screwed up with going cheap on the hardware and then trying to force people to pay $100 more for Kinect whether they wanted it or not and up until they recanted they were even wanting to make it always online. What a sh*t company MS is.
Both are simply pathetic now and if anyone wants to take a look at some screen shots of somewhat graphically demanding games from the last few years then it will be clear what I mean by calling them Blur-Box One and Blur-Station 4. FXAA (the least demanding AA as far as required system resources) uses a blur filter to lessen the jaggies but it blurs textures too.
The average gamer doesn’t care about that. That’s only something PC enthusiasts care about. That’s one of the reasons why the Switch is so successful even though the hardware is extremely weak. And look at the 3DS beating the more powerful Vita.
That would be because of the Nintendo brand and Nintendo games. I will buy a Switch when they release Bayonetta 3.
I must be honest I think the two consoles were just released at the wrong time. What the hell came over Sony and Microsoft to release a console AT THE BEGINNING of the life cycle of an API?? You release it towards the middle so that developers can work out the kinks and you have a better sense of the hardware that you will need. Alternatively, release it towards the end a la PS3 and XB360 and skip the next API entirely. PS3 and XB360 were running DX9 at 720p and we loved it (for the most part). If the XBOX and PS4P were released in the beginning and their resolutions were at 1080p rather than 4K… their reception might have been a little more comfortable in the current gaming climate.
BTW Witcher 3 on my friend’s PS4 was actually OK. But when I played it on my XBox One with the upscaled letterbox resolution… ouchie. Was really a game more geared towards PC ultimately.
I don’t really keep up with consoles. The last console I owned was an Atari 2600 back in 1980 but I do get some info just looking for gaming news and what people talk about in forums. I recall quite a few gamers saying that it was way past time for MS and Sony to release the nextgen consoles. The Xbox 360 was going on 8 years old and the PS3 was going on 7 years old iirc. That is a long, long console life cycle. I guess MS and Sony felt like they couldn’t wait any longer to release the nextgen consoles.
Yeah it’s kinda a catch 22. Release new console = underpowered. Delay console = poor graphics on current platform with outdated architecture.
I guess the only solution would have been to release the XBOX and PS4P first with a resolution locked at 1080P which would have made them seem as lot more powerful, but then I reckon they would have sold the thing at an even bigger loss. DAMN consolehardware logisticsis a messy game.
Maybe the XB360 was also underpowered (total of 512mib RAM)? Does this mean that it is the industry itself that is not developing/coding its games properly due to rushed development cycles? I think so.
Considering they are 300-400 dollar machines I think they are good products even if outdated. Don’t take my word for it. I was watching Cohh Carnage (twitch streamer and known PC gamer) playing Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted 4 and said those games look better than a large majority of PC games. 30 fps for sure but they can still pull off some good looking games with that outdated hardware.
Imagine the results without the downgrade now..
Would be 0 difference.
would be no console version
Yeah I didn’t buy it at launch partly because of the downgrade. I still bought it all the same though..
They would have sold three extra copies on PC in 2015 and lose thousands of sells on PS4 and XB1 when word got out about how bad the game runs on consoles. Use your brain, they can’t run a successful company thinking like a fanboy. It’s obvious from the games long term success that the “downgrade” was the right decision.
Or, they could have released the “real” version on the PC, and the downgraded version on consoles, instead of pandering to the manufacturers with their “platform parity” bullsh*t like everyone else?
Na, I guess they couldn’t have done that, after all….. I mean, that requires actual balls and people who give a sh*t about the PC, which makes them willing to stand up to Microsoft and Sony over their anti-consumer bullsh*t, so….. My bad!
🙁
But no, yeah, keep telling yourself there was no other option because this “was the right decision” to make – for all of us, I’m sure.
BUT BUT ALL PC GAMERS ARE PIRATES!!!! /S
To be fair, there are millions of people who pirated Witcher 3 at some point.
True , but there are many more that bought it
Yep. There is still a good old fashioned positive correlation between quality of game and the amount of units the game sells.
Can confirm I always buy good games as long as there’s no Denuvo style BS
I pirated it. I bought it later, I am playing it right now. They gave me the 1 and 2 for free so I bought them the 3 GOTY. Such a nice peoples, can’t pirate them.
And those people likely would never have purchased it in the first place. So the reality is that of the people that did pirate the game (as far as the games sales go…), lost sales weren’t an issue.
to be fair many console gamer got used copies cdpr gains nothing from.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6730ff3a3a760ea6df7fda97bfcc34488c2147e2ae423d71078a62707748490d.gif i also bought it
You bought a pirate? Weirdo.
i bought the original game but after i finished the pirated copy,it was that good that i had to own it
Nice to see the game sold well on all platforms (well maybe besides Xbox).
Could be that many xbox owners have gaming pcs or just the gap in the number of Xboxes to PS4
A lot of Xbox owners don’t actually play games. They just use their consoles to stream movies/TV.
Proof that console pasants realized 30 fps is not enough
I bought it. CDPR IN MA HEART.
The more people afforded better hardware, more copies sold to PC i guess
And the price reduction over years, there was amazing sales over 2016 and 2017 on PC.
Couldn’t care less if PC sold the most or the least. I just want it on the PC, and i want them to make a shitload of money. Because their games are actually worth it, also their attitude towards gamers is refreshing in 2017/8.
If anything, its a shame it didn’t sold more on Xbox. They could of used the extra money for sure. More money is always a good thing!
I care if games sell well on PC simply because if they do, it encourages more devs to create (or port) games for PC.
Sure, but i mean, if its a bit less or even 20% less, its not a big deal. As long as its not a huge difference like the Xbox version in the chart. That would be sad indeed. Both for the PC gamers that missed out on this great game, and also for the devs that made it.
I keep seeing “wars” and how people want this and that to be on top, even if its 1 % more..
you should care. They should develope for pc first.
Yet only the consoles got HDR output patched in. Not gonna lie: When I see how little the game sold on XB1 comparably, that makes me a bit salty. Maybe MS/Sony paid them to do it?
don’t worry hdr is not that amazing.
I’ll be the judge of that, especially since I already have a HDR TV.
PC long tail sales were always going to end up rising above the consoles, because the consoles deal in gens, while PC just goes on and on within the same ecosystem.
Some people like to tout that consoles>PC in terms of sales, but those people never look at the long term picture.
Well, at the same time they do make a lot more money on single copy sold on PC than on consoles though. Plus Witcher 3 still is priced pretty high. It has sales and releases, but it still hasn’t become budget release. So there’s little doubg they made most money on PC SKU.
Yes, but on consoles no third party dev is the owner of the store, like CDPR is with GOG.
Too bad those 50% on PC in 2018 were cheap $5 steam summer sales or some bullsh1t. In my opinion, you’re not truly supporting a developer if you don’t buy the game close to the original price during the first year. I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on PC gamers but these statistics aren’t anything to be proud of considering there are over 200 million steam users (I’m sure there are more than that but I’m too lazy to look up the actual numbers) and only 70-80 total PS4 consoles sold.
The game never went as low as $5, it was $20 at most. You also forget that The Witcher 3 is sold on GOG which CD Projekt owns so they get all the money from it being sold there and a good amount of copies of the The Witcher 3 were bought there especially at launch which was at least 700k copies.
Yes, and I’m sure every console boy bought every copy at $60, and I’m also sure not even one console player got it used, effectively supporting CDPR with $0.
The lowest the game has been on Steam is $20.
Try harder, conslow troll.
The fact that you’re assuming I’m a console troll just because I’m not kissing PCs as$ is sad.
That’s what you point out about my comment because you know I owned you.
CDPR is what it is today thanks to PC gamers. Cry all you want and work on your trolling.
They had to release The Witcher 2 on consoles a year later to save their company because of all the “support” they were getting from PC pirates… sorry, I mean gamers.
No one needed saving, stop BSing. They wanted more money just as any other company, they managed to milk the xboys with a vastly downgraded port.
The PC platform put them here, period. I know it hurts your console brain, but that’s how it is.
proof that they were dying company or your a console corporate fanboy.
why is crash bandicoot coming to switch, pc and xbox?
Someone going out of business?
you are a troll pushing ps4 lol
“you’re not truly supporting a developer if you don’t buy the game close to the original price during the first year”
That is wrong in many levels. and amount of steam users doesn’t have anything to do with game sales, you know, there are tons of games released every day on steam, different genres, different people.
“That is wrong in many levels.” Just something cheap people like to tell themselves.
Good games will sell on PC for years,decades sometimes. it’s the nature of the platform. on console, they might have a good year but it fades away. i don’t care if publisher wants all the money in first week, it won’t work.
add something to conversation or go away troll.
1: gog has a sale
2:buy game.
3:not supporting cdpr.
console gamer smarts.
Well, as has already been pointed out The Witcher 3 never sold for $5 but I get the gist of your argument. It’s a bit more complicated than just looking at the sales from the chart though. PC gamers generally do buy their games cheaper than full price if they wait to buy but is that hurting the Publisher? Hard to say without all of the data. For instance we can’t sell our games or buy them used like console players do. One could make the same kind of argument that used console game sales are hurting the Publisher too by reducing new game sales and profits for Publishers.
Steam Sales aren’t hurting Valve either or they wouldn’t do them multiple times a year every year. When EA accused Valve of hurting Publishers profits by holding Steam Sales Gaben said that he had hired Economists to research the subject based on their experience beforehand and it made good sense to do the sales. Guess what? EA does sales on Origin too and EA is making huge profits year after year a part of which is on games that they Publish even with the sales.
The argument that there are more accounts on Steam so that accounts for the increased sales is baseless as well. Some people have multiple accounts because they have children and if they are young then the parents probably aren’t going to let them play W3. In addition Steam sells to tens of millions of people that can’t even run a game like W3 (take a look at the Steam Hardware GPU Survey) and those people aren’t interested in AAA games anyway.
Show me were to get it for $5?
I got goty on sale 2 weeks ago for $20
Stop being so mad.
Most console gamers probably got it used.
CDProjekt deserves all the sales they get and more.
Marvelous trilogy.
that game was a huge PCpill for most of the peasants out there
point of fact, it ran like $hit on console, and they had to downgrade it with the 1.3 patch
after people realized how BADLY it looked&ran compared to PC, a lot of them ditched their BS4’s and bought a proper PC
that’s exactly how i got my friend into PCgaming
was a sony fanboy for years until he realized how WEAK and TRASH the system is
and after he moved to PC he barely touches his BS4
i hope to god CDPR won’t downgrade it for peasants, since most of them now are
on PC.
And that shows all of those shilling on MS stage on E3 was for nothing.
xbox is dying?
I bought it to fund cyberpunk
xbox wins!
I have bought the game on PC and a year later on Xbox One. If I had a PS4, probably I would’ve bought it for this platform too.