Crysis, UT3 Sales Disappoint
December 15th, 2007 by James Hyde in Action, Articles, Business, Featured story, News, PC
Now here’s a thing very few had expected; two of the most gorgeous games ever made are struggling to sell any copies. Crysis has only sold around 86,000 units since its release mid-November. Even worse are the sales of Unreal Tournament 3, which sold only 34,000 copies in November (it was released on Nov 19).
A ton of FPS games have been released this year, and it looks like those games that were released first, Orange Box, BioShock, CoD4 — which have all sold more than a million copies each — have gotten the bulk of the sales, where gamers probably spent most of their money. Another slowdown of sales for Crysis is undoubtedly the steep system requirements. A normal mid-range PC won’t have any of the eye-candy the game is known for, and the game probably isn’t worth buying if it runs at 20 fps and looks horrible as well. For that exact reason, Crysis is looking like a commercial flop.
Tags: Action, Articles, Business, Featured story, News, PC
December 15th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Crysis, I believe, is still one or two years ahead of the competition in terms of graphics. UT3 runs just fine on a mid-range PC, which is why I am all the more surprised that it is turning out to be such a flop.
December 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am
It’s amazing how stupid people are. You don’t need :
2.000-1,000 dollar computer………
You don’t need vista for DX10, I unlocked the Cvars and made crysis look GOOD.
The computer I bought for only what 800 bucks? This system was for my wife.
8800gt
4 gbs of corsair ram ddr 2 800
MSI-AM2 mobo
AMD 6400×2
500 gb hard drive
antec 900 case
650 watt psu
20x burner
………
all for 800 dollars, people need help just ask me. For a upgrade you can play these games for a good 2-3 years.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Wicker, most people won’t spend 800 bucks for the sake of one game. Crysis sales will probably be steady for the next year or so, as people upgrade they’ll get new games, and Crysis is the top one in that matter. So in the long term, it’s probably going to sell well.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
[...] Crysis and UT3 have shown disappointing sales in November, so has Sony’s highly anticipated Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. The game was [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
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December 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
That is pretty hard to believe you were able to build that system for $800 man … did you get some special pricing or what? Or are you using some no name components for the PSU and hard drive (is that a SATA hard drive?) Is that the 256 MB 8800 GT or the 512? The 512 alone costs around $300 with tax these days. So you are telling me the rest cost only $500 with a 650 W PSU to boot? I know the ram is cheap … maybe $60 bucks and the Case is about 140 right so another $200 … now with $300 left you were able to buy the CPU, Mobo, harddrive, and burner?
At any rate you do indeed need to use DX10 if you want Crysis to look anywhere near as good as they showed us in their pre-release vids and screenshots. Heck you have to run the game at 1680×1050 just for it too come close and then you can’t even use AA. You can do the tweak for DX9 but there are still real technical features that it cannot do and that is where DX10 comes in. So yeah the game sucks because it is unplayable at decent fps (50 fps at least please) when you crank it up to Max under Dx10 (which is what it hyped to boot, that along with SLI and quad support … neither of which work very well) and apply any AA let alone 4xAA.
When I play UT3 I play in 1680×1050 maxed settings in game and using the Nvidia control panel and drivers 169.13 forced AA at 4xAA and the game runs at peak fps all the time. I enabled v-sync and framesmoothing along with tweaking some ini settings and the result is amazing gameplay at hyper fast speeds with jaw dropping graphics that are dripping with the awe factor inside and out, no matter what the setting. Crysis excels at one thing and one thing only … jungle environments … take that away and you have a good looking game but nothing that is going to win any awards. Combined with crap fps using even the most expensive components (including tri-sli) and you have a very average although pretty looking game. But looks can only take you so far as we all know and the gameplay suffers greatly because of the shoddy performance … unless you turn it down to lower resolutions and don’t use AA or just use DX9 rendering and forgo the DX10 enhancements.
December 15th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
This also goes to show you what ZERO advertising vs tons of commercials can do for your game. Lets all remember how much money went into pushing Gears of War … I really don’t think it would have been a smash money making hit out the gate if they did not have any commercials as has been the case with Crysis and UT3. The advertising for those two games have been horrible and this is really inexcusable then these are the two greatest games that showcase just how far the state of PC gaming has come and yet instead we get loads of commercials about WoW. Just think if Midway or EA would have gotten some well known celebs to push UT3 and Crysis respectively … we certainly would be looking at some very different numbers.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
[...] has received great reviews for both the PC and PS3 versions, but sales have been quite a bit on the low end. UT3 for the Mac will be our early next year. Related PostsPS3 2008 Big Titles Partially Dated [...]
December 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
yes ana, with rebates (i filled out) my bill came to 798 :-).
PSU ,Antec 750 watt… not cheap brand
Video card, 512mb evga 8800 gt superclocked
Ram, g.skill 4 gbs for 86 bucks
500 gb hard drive for 90 (seagate)
Antec 900 case for 99
burner 20x w/ sata for 21
mobo, asus-sli for 80
I probably left some shit out, hell I’m tired lol.
December 25th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
This is a bit misleading. The sales figures you are quoting are till the end of November only.
Crysis sold 87,000 in 2 weeks and UT3 sold 36,000 in 7 days.
December 25th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
“That is pretty hard to believe you were able to build that system for $800 man … did you get some special pricing or what? ”
He is right. $220 for an 8800GT which is very close to the performance of an 8800GTX.
You can easily build a $800 system that will SMOKE a PS3.
December 26th, 2007 at 4:17 am
I don’t know about that … I wouldn’t buy an $80 mobo I know that much. And no 8800GT card I know that is factory OCed is less than $300 including tax. And what Antec case only costs $99 and is worth anything? Come on man I can build a cheapy PC for under a grand too but one with good components and a good CPU is going to cost. Anyway that is my opinion and I am sticking to it. And what about the monitor … where is that in this equation? Anything less than a WS 22in that gives you 1680×1050 is just not a gaming monitor imo. Again sure you may be able to build a cheap PC but is it good and will it last. These are the things you have to ask when you are cutting corners to try and stay within some imagined “right” price for upgrades or a new PC.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
[...] Crysis, UT3 Sales Disappoint [...]