Although Crysis looks like a truly amazing PC shooter, the stock price seems out of whack. We know this is going to be a somewhat niche title given the high specs, yet the forecast is higher than very mainstream games like Battlefield 2142.
Farcry was another highly rated but high spec game and that barely made it over a million units. At this stage for that game, the forecast would've been much lower as the probability of hitting 1 million would've been lower.
To supplement the article I posted with the videos of CryENGINE2 is this article, which states that Crysis will include the engine as a map editor for the game! Featuring "nearly all of the features of the fully licensed engine, and that modders may be able to work out terms to release commercial software created with the free editor."
As I have commented in other PC games that have rather high system requirements, they tend to sell rather well over the long term if the gameplay holds up and there's an active modding community ala Half-Life. The best example _is_ by far Half-Life 2, where the coming release of Half-Life Episode 2 is based on the original Half-Life Source engine which was released in 2004!
Those screenshots really make me want to do more PC gaming. The problem from the simExchange's perspective is screenshots that good also mean intense hardware that greatly reduces the number of people who can actually play it. I think the stock price really comes down to the system reqs on this one.
I had thought all the graphics talk was huff and puff, but that screenshot comparing real life and Crysis shots, the realistitc facial textures, and the weapons add on images are pretty incredible how detailed they are.
Crysis is a bonafide showcase for Windows Vista and DirectX 10, which will make many people upgrade just to play the game. When Tomb Raider and Quake came out with support for Voodoo cards, people just went crazy upgrading their PCs and bought the game to showoff to their friends. I feel Crysis is that type of game.
A million copies may actually be too bullish. The selling point of this game is cutting edge DirectX 10 graphics on Windows Vista. There might not even be a million people who can run this game.
Games like these don't sell many copies...studios putting out games like Crysis are more likely just trying to show what their graphics engine can do at max so they get other companies to license their technology.
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