GRAW ...

[jsonedecker]

I guess my question that clearly wont get answered was - is it the fact that its 2006 so get a new system ...  or is it that things do get capped/made to be less scalable to fit a certain range? Some stated GR1 was very happy to run on many varying systems, the power of things now and what people have better than my system and what you get visualy was my moment of - " ".

I dont have many "moments" on this forum, love the place ... but this was my "moment" .. dont wory I wont have any other ones 

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No worries... It's all good.

In some respects, I think what you are seeing is that this is a year to upgrade for graphics regardless of what comes out. The new console(s) have gone one up of the ususal PC as they always do when first released, so you are seeing both PC HW ans SW leaping them again... as they always do.

As I mentioned, there are very few games/engines that actually *make* people upgrade. Sure, the guy that games a lot will upgrade almost on schedule but I'm talking about 80% of the buying public. I upgraded solely for HL2... Twice! Once when it was supposed to come out and again a year later when it did come out. Any Epic game tied to a new engine does the same thing. The reason there, other than the obvious, is that it is a HEAVILY licensed engine so people know thier upgrade will be for more than just one game. This will play even heavier into UE3 games as that thing is being used in a lot of games.

So I guess, my point to youe one questions is that I doubt GRAW would be a real catalyst for making the majority upgrade. Sure, people around here might, but it doesn't really offer that broad "I got to have it no matter what" appeal. In fact, neither did any of the other RSE games nor 90% of the rest of game that come out.

Just a little opinion piece on what drives HW sales.

-John

[calius]

Cheers John, that puts it better than most.

I think thats me answered. Please dont turn this into a "locky" folks, but I do think its run its course. .... I sounded like someone else then, anyone guess who?

[ruggbutt]

I look that there're a lot of people just signed that 're talking only bad of GR:AW.

People never seen before, people who probably plays BF2...

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Now it's namecalling because someone may or may not like another game/sim. This is the same kind of ignorant BS coming from the flight sim community. "F4 rules cuz it's more realistic" bla bla bla. There are alot of us here who have bought titles such as OFP, RvS, SOF1 and 2, CoD 1 and 2, etc. All of those games have good and bad points. But to say that cuz you have a dislike about GRAW that you are some kind of ###### and like BF2 is ignorant. BF2 is fun to play, in moderation (IMHO). The reality mod for it is awesome and it makes the gameplay much more enjoyable. But I only play BF2 maybe once a week, it doesn't have long legs for someone who enjoys tac shooters. GRAW won't have long legs unless some things are fixed in game and we get the m/p gametypes that kept GR alive for so long.

[QB-Paladin]

One simple question(s) :

1. How much money do you think will be spent on GRAW via hardware alone?

2. Is GRAW a calculated product to match XB360 for sales, if not units sold but hardware units sold?

3. Is this a case that if PC sales are low (the age old console pc debate) and its built to an extent that hardware will fly of the shelves to work with it,  this proves the above question?

4. What exactly was GRINS contract? Was it actualy to make the "next gen" GR or was it to capitalise on GR1 and make what they think is the next GR (not knocking that at all BTW maybe even GRIN team were not aware) and was there a clause in the contract to make sure the engine was tweaked in such a way that it bends people to upgrade (hence still refering to question 2)?

5. Is GRAW being used as a tool to revitalise the PC industry finacialy by hardware sales if nothig else?

6. Is "Next Gen" just a generalised term to basicly get the whole gamer crowed into putting money back into the industry and the last 5 questions are simply paranoia?

I'm sorry Calius. It wasn't my intention to not address your post and go off on a rant of my own. So, let me make amends for it...

1. It's hard to say how much money people will spend on hardware, because it depends on how much each person buying it needs to improve their system. Certainly anyone not already running a 9600/9800 video card (or Nvidia equivalent) will have to upgrade. Figure if they are going from something that old, they are likely to buy a lower end, most bang-for-the-buck card, so maybe $130 for one of those. Figure those same people will stick with their AGP-slotted motherboards and lower-end processor, but have to increase ram, so add $99 for 1GB. You'd be looking at a bare minimum upgrade for a low-end system of $229. $229 will also buy someone with a better system a nice mid-level AGP or PCIe video card, let's run with that and assume they already meet the minimum specs but want a better video card upgrade to get more eye-candy. What's left are the people who either can't upgrade their old computer to run it and have to start fresh and those who simply want to run GRAW with as close to bleeding edge technology as they can. You can build as system that will run it, cannibalizing just your optical and hard drives from an old machine for $600. A friend of mine just built a system with SLI dual-7900GTX's, 2GB of ram and an Athlon 64 processor for under $1250, including a new case and power supply. So, let's take a median and say those users, it will be more like a $925 upgrade. Sounds like alot (and it is), but that's going to be a relatively small number of people and it's going to last them for the next 2 years, give or take a few months.

If GR:AW sells 100,000 copies initially, I'd say you would have 30% who will go for the $229 upgrade, 60% who won't upgrade any hardware and 10% who will go for the $925 upgrade. For the $229 people, that totals $6,870,000 and for the $925 people, that is $9,250,000, for a grand total of $16,120,000 in upgrades. That's alot of money, but a drop in the bucket in the overall hardware market.

2) No. In terms of hardware units sold, I suspect the PC version will be directly responsible for more units of hardware being sold than the 360 version. On the 360 side, it is a top-shelf title that many new 360 buyers would pick up and it will likely sell more software units on the 360 by several times, but no more than a very tiny percentage are buying the 360 specifically to play GR:AW on it, so it's not a hardware sales driver over there. But on the PC side, a "unit of hardware" could by a stick of ram or video card, without being a whole system. However you slice it, though, I don't think GR:AW on either side was made with the intent of selling hardware. I think it is consumer demand for gaming software that pushes the technology envelope with is driving the hardware requirements, not a concerted attempt to set the hardware requirements so high they drive PC hardware sales.

3) Again, I think it is consumer demand for software that pushes the envelope that is driving the high system requirements, not any attempt by the publisher to drive hardware sales for anyone else.

4) We'll never know what was in the contract, but I think you're looking for a conspiracy where there isn't one with that question. In other words, no, I don't think there was anything in GRIN's contract to make the game require people to upgrade hardware to run well. If anything, Ubisoft would probably have preferred they build it to the lowest acceptable hardware specifications possible so they could sell their game to the widest possible PC audience without making people upgrade from integrated video and so forth. But that wouldn't have been a realistic expectation either given that the majority of dedicated PC game players will demand better performance than that. And appeasing that segment of the market is necessary for the game to sell enough initial units to create a market "critical mass".

5) No. I think you are thinking GR:AW will be bigger than it is. GR:AW could sell 1 million copies during it's useful life like Ghost Recon and it's affect on the hardware market be minimal. As a market driver, a game is only going to have an impact when it's released. In 6 months, what is bleeding edge hardware now will be second tier, and in 12 months it will be considered old. That means you really should only look at the first six months or so of initial sales when asking if it's driving the hardware market. And I don't think it is. GR:AW is too much of a niche product. It's not going to drive a mass upgrade on anything near the scale the launch of Half-Life 2 did, and if any game is in a position to actually drive PC hardware sales right now, it's World of Warcraft.

6) To a large degree, I think the way you have phased your questions are driven by paranoia, even if the ideas behind them aren't. Marketing GR:AW as next generation, or Unreal Tournament 2007 or Crysis, or Gears of War...whatever the game, is just that...marketing. What is going to drive hardware sales is competitive nature of the industry. The artisitc need of developers to create something new, to program something that hasn't been programmed before. It's going to be driven by the hardware manufacturers, who come out with a new batch of cards and go "look what we can do now!". And it's being driven by consumers who get bored with seeing the same thing over and over again. I don't think it is any way a case of Nvidia or Ati telling any software maker "We'll pay you $X if you make you game not run on hardware below this level.", which is what your questions are implying.

[zwitherow]

One simple question(s) :

1. How much money do you think will be spent on GRAW via hardware alone?

2. Is GRAW a calculated product to match XB360 for sales, if not units sold but hardware units sold?

3. Is this a case that if PC sales are low (the age old console pc debate) and its built to an extent that hardware will fly of the shelves to work with it,  this proves the above question?

4. What exactly was GRINS contract? Was it actualy to make the "next gen" GR or was it to capitalise on GR1 and make what they think is the next GR (not knocking that at all BTW maybe even GRIN team were not aware) and was there a clause in the contract to make sure the engine was tweaked in such a way that it bends people to upgrade (hence still refering to question 2)?

5. Is GRAW being used as a tool to revitalise the PC industry finacialy by hardware sales if nothig else?

6. Is "Next Gen" just a generalised term to basicly get the whole gamer crowed into putting money back into the industry and the last 5 questions are simply paranoia?

I'm sorry Calius. It wasn't my intention to not address your post and go off on a rant of my own. So, let me make amends for it...

1. It's hard to say how much money people will spend on hardware, because it depends on how much each person buying it needs to improve their system. Certainly anyone not already running a 9600/9800 video card (or Nvidia equivalent) will have to upgrade. Figure if they are going from something that old, they are likely to buy a lower end, most bang-for-the-buck card, so maybe $130 for one of those. Figure those same people will stick with their AGP-slotted motherboards and lower-end processor, but have to increase ram, so add $99 for 1GB. You'd be looking at a bare minimum upgrade for a low-end system of $229. $229 will also buy someone with a better system a nice mid-level AGP or PCIe video card, let's run with that and assume they already meet the minimum specs but want a better video card upgrade to get more eye-candy. What's left are the people who either can't upgrade their old computer to run it and have to start fresh and those who simply want to run GRAW with as close to bleeding edge technology as they can. You can build as system that will run it, cannibalizing just your optical and hard drives from an old machine for $600. A friend of mine just built a system with SLI dual-7900GTX's, 2GB of ram and an Athlon 64 processor for under $1250, including a new case and power supply. So, let's take a median and say those users, it will be more like a $925 upgrade. Sounds like alot (and it is), but that's going to be a relatively small number of people and it's going to last them for the next 2 years, give or take a few months.

If GR:AW sells 100,000 copies initially, I'd say you would have 30% who will go for the $229 upgrade, 60% who won't upgrade any hardware and 10% who will go for the $925 upgrade. For the $229 people, that totals $6,870,000 and for the $925 people, that is $9,250,000, for a grand total of $16,120,000 in upgrades. That's alot of money, but a drop in the bucket in the overall hardware market.

2) No. In terms of hardware units sold, I suspect the PC version will be directly responsible for more units of hardware being sold than the 360 version. On the 360 side, it is a top-shelf title that many new 360 buyers would pick up and it will likely sell more software units on the 360 by several times, but no more than a very tiny percentage are buying the 360 specifically to play GR:AW on it, so it's not a hardware sales driver over there. But on the PC side, a "unit of hardware" could by a stick of ram or video card, without being a whole system. However you slice it, though, I don't think GR:AW on either side was made with the intent of selling hardware. I think it is consumer demand for gaming software that pushes the technology envelope with is driving the hardware requirements, not a concerted attempt to set the hardware requirements so high they drive PC hardware sales.

3) Again, I think it is consumer demand for software that pushes the envelope that is driving the high system requirements, not any attempt by the publisher to drive hardware sales for anyone else.

4) We'll never know what was in the contract, but I think you're looking for a conspiracy where there isn't one with that question. In other words, no, I don't think there was anything in GRIN's contract to make the game require people to upgrade hardware to run well. If anything, Ubisoft would probably have preferred they build it to the lowest acceptable hardware specifications possible so they could sell their game to the widest possible PC audience without making people upgrade from integrated video and so forth. But that wouldn't have been a realistic expectation either given that the majority of dedicated PC game players will demand better performance than that. And appeasing that segment of the market is necessary for the game to sell enough initial units to create a market "critical mass".

5) No. I think you are thinking GR:AW will be bigger than it is. GR:AW could sell 1 million copies during it's useful life like Ghost Recon and it's affect on the hardware market be minimal. As a market driver, a game is only going to have an impact when it's released. In 6 months, what is bleeding edge hardware now will be second tier, and in 12 months it will be considered old. That means you really should only look at the first six months or so of initial sales when asking if it's driving the hardware market. And I don't think it is. GR:AW is too much of a niche product. It's not going to drive a mass upgrade on anything near the scale the launch of Half-Life 2 did, and if any game is in a position to actually drive PC hardware sales right now, it's World of Warcraft.

6) To a large degree, I think the way you have phased your questions are driven by paranoia, even if the ideas behind them aren't. Marketing GR:AW as next generation, or Unreal Tournament 2007 or Crysis, or Gears of War...whatever the game, is just that...marketing. What is going to drive hardware sales is competitive nature of the industry. The artisitc need of developers to create something new, to program something that hasn't been programmed before. It's going to be driven by the hardware manufacturers, who come out with a new batch of cards and go "look what we can do now!". And it's being driven by consumers who get bored with seeing the same thing over and over again. I don't think it is any way a case of Nvidia or Ati telling any software maker "We'll pay you $X if you make you game not run on hardware below this level.", which is what your questions are implying.

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that about sums it up

[calius]

Cheers, that was a good post and a good read too

"We'll pay you $X if you make you game not run on hardware below this level.", which is what your questions are implying.

... to a point thats exactly where some of my questions were coming from, because sometimes I just wonder about the industry in that respect, if nothing to just see what others thought about it realy and just a niggle in the back of my brain with the eye-candy / rig needed element that was highlighted (for me) with the demo etc. Deffo "not" to insight some conspiracy rubbish (or bang on about BF2 .... !? that one threw even me and I started the thread! LOL ).

Thanks mate.

[Machine]

I think that the need to spend horrible amounts of money to upgrade your PC is simply awful. I don't know if I can get GR:AW in a long time, because it demands so state-of-the-art hardware. It is known that the newest hardware is drastically more expensive than a bit older hardware. With the newest gear, a slight jump in efficiency brings hundreds of euros/dollars to the price.

With consoles, it's nice to buy the relatively cheap hardware and then every game has to be suited for it.

Solutions:

-PC hardware prices should lower significantly.

-Consoles should have keyboard and mouse so that I could play on a "desktop console" like I do on PC.

-There could be static component packages/upgrades awailable to PC with competetive prices compared to console prices. A new game would be made to suit such a component level.

I can't just go and spend 1000 bucks (euros here) on a new PC every time I buy a new game!

[Solo_13]

If GR looks like RVS on yur system then it's your system...trust me. Oh well, I'm glad most of us are happy...graphics aren't everything anyways. This game has the gameplay I've been waiting years for and GRIN delivered as promised! thank you GRIN.

[Rocky]

To Rocky and the rest of the mod crew, ive never realy posted anything in this manner before but I cant help myself but ask these questions ... feel free to lock it and ban me, but .... somethings "fishy"  .

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Ban you? You are my best source of alternative news!

[chilly-willy]

IMHO. The only thing truely lacking for me is AA support. They patched it on other games to get it working with HDR so I think they'll do the same here. Er..., well..., I hope they will anyway.

[calius]

To Rocky and the rest of the mod crew, ive never realy posted anything in this manner before but I cant help myself but ask these questions ... feel free to lock it and ban me, but .... somethings "fishy"  .

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Ban you? You are my best source of alternative news!

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LOL .... fair comment!

[Iggy.]

I guess my question that clearly wont get answered was - is it the fact that its 2006 so get a new system ...  or is it that things do get capped/made to be less scalable to fit a certain range? Some stated GR1 was very happy to run on many varying systems, the power of things now and what people have better than my system and what you get visualy was my moment of - " ".

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i played gr1 on a pentium 3 600 mhz with an mx200

[thrush213]

this is the first game i've played that ran truly like a slide show lol. but it's my fault for not having 1 gb ram. if your computer's 3 years old, you're going to have to run this on the lowest possible setting

[sui317]

when GR1 came out, who could play it without updating their PC ??

i think it is good that low end PC's can't run it, then it will last longer ......

(knowing ubi and SDK's )

if games won't push the tech what will ??

we desire lots of things in eye candy and ai and what ever you can come up with

but when you find that you are due for an update you complain

(you as in the people that complain about high specs and post wish lists as well)

the devs tried hard to give us our wishes and there for we need to buy stuff to fullfill our wishes and demands we have put upon the devs

if there is a conspiracy we gamers are a big part of it even if we are not aware of it

i would have been happy with a mission pack for the old GR and some grafical updates, but we got a new game, different engine and other abilities,

i won't complain, i updated for this game and am happy i did, that is time and evolution in progress,

updating your PC is like patching a game, moddifying a weapon with new calibers and sights, all to improve the performance

that is life,

and updating does not have to be expensive

you can get good resaults with fair prizes for vidcards just read and think of what you want

and it was known long before the demo that it would be a heavy game to run !