I get that, but given that PC sales overall are not in decline, quite the opposite in fact, I fail to see how less physical copies sold has any bearing on the matter at all. Only the total number of copies sold (physical + digital) on a given platform is relevant to the equation.

I bet that many people are also waiting for a sale. Also a RedKit for TW3 would help immensely. But so far it looks like CDPR knows what they're doing.

A lot of people are certainly waiting for all the DLC to be released. A good many are probably also waiting for the two announced expansions. And some are waiting for the inevitable GOTY edition.

Hmm, wasn't there the news TW2 made regarding most of its sales being retail than on digital at one point? Wiki states:
"The Witcher 2 had reportedly sold more than 940,000 copies by August 2011,[56] a sales rate that CD Projekt RED had projected.[56] Of the 940,000 copies sold, 200,000 were online sales (digital sales).[56]"

Those are PC sales since the 360 version came nearly 360 days later.

So that makes about 70% of the copies sold, retail. I assume the retail, GOG & other non-steam sales are roughly around there for TW3 for east Europe as some Neogaf posters suggested?

That's bullshit and you know it. They meant that they could not pull off a game the scale of TW3 if they didn't make it for consoles. And we all know TW3 is at least 3 times bigger than TW2. If they had the budget to make TW2 and TW1 before resorting to consoles, they definitely can make TW3, just without the scale it has today.

And it's definitely higher than 5%. Steamspy puts it at 570k. Steam copies alone puts it above 10%, not counting GOG's, GMG, Amazon and retail.

Because a physical high street presence accounts for a huge percentage of sales in videogames, here (dunno about the rest of the world) in Gamestop the space for PC games is about 4 foot wide and the rest of the shop is devoted to consoles and console games.

Heading towards consoles provides a greater market presence, so instead of a percentage of a 4 foot wide presence in a shop, it has that bit plus the space for XBOX and PS4 game shelves and the actual console box (for bundles) section to make their presence felt.

Its not really to do with PC sales (most PC game boxes bought in shops are probably redeemed digitally on Steam anyway), its to do with having a physical high street presence, having console versions enhances that presence and from there the sales percentage that goes with that.

http://www.vg247.com/2014/10/16/why-the-witcher-3-needed-to-be-on-ps4/

“With The Witcher 3 we knew that we would have to reach a wider audience,” CD Projekt Red’s Mical Gilewski told VG247.
“We needed to be on the new consoles and in particular the PS4, because a lot of people are attracted to them.”

Yeah, here's hoping other studios will take some inspiration from CDPR ( & GOG ).

And I probably won't get to play Fallout 4 any time soon either, because I don't own one of the new consoles, and tend to only buy PC games at GOG. Still, just saying that I like the series, and would give the new one a try, given the chance. It's about time for Bethesda to start releasing some stuff here anyway.

As for censorship... what censorship? UK and AT is where its at, my friend. :D

I won't spend money on censored software ( or movies ). This site is pretty useful, when you're not sure if the German release of a specific game etc. is censored: http://ogdb.eu/
Wait, I never received my inflatable Geralt. I want my money back!

On topic: There's also those with less than optimal web connections, who simply couldn't download all of the game files.

That would include myself. I installed the game from disc, and only downloaded the patches and DLC.

UK and AT?

What is AT please?

English and Austrian releases, basically. ( For our readers from the US: That's Austria, not to be confused with Australia. ;P )

I'm fine with English versions, but I know many German gamers want German voice-overs, so the Austrian version usually offers that, minus the censorship of the German version. Many Austrian web stores seem to cater specifically to German gamers, often with ridiculous prices ( especially compared to the UK versions ), since they know many Germans are desperate for uncut versions of their favorite games. :P

Ah, OK, I was really confused there for a bit, but I get it now, cheers! :)

Well the latest video about galaxy and the witcher 3 claims something like 1,5m on the pc market.

Ok that may well be true (ie. downloading 25 GB is just not an option for many). Maybe I was thinking of those cases where one installs a retail game from a DVD (which still needs e.g. a Steam/Origin/UPlay account), and then the installed game decides to download several gigabytes anyway, just in order to "update" the game.

Consoles are worse, a fair few of the games need a 10 gig patch after you install the disc. Im guessing that it isn't all "patch", I reckon that all the files wont fit on one bluray disc and they counter that with the extra d/l when you start the sodding game. Between that and the system file itself taking up 100 gigs, theres not a lot of room for games on the bloody 500 gig hard drive.

Aren't such console games then unplayable out of the box (as it misses some data)?

That reminds me: how was the TW3 PC retail version delivered (considering it contains a couple dozen gigabytes of files, I presume)? On several DVDs (how many?), or a Bluray disc? I for one don't have any Bluray drive on any of my PCs. It would have been an option for ASUS G75VW laptop, but I decided to get it with a DVD-RW drive instead, as it was considerably cheaper.

Well, as soon as you load the disc it installs to the HD and informs you of an update (usually 8-10 gigs), sometimes it asks if you want to start the game without the update, but whats the point if the update borks you savegame afterwards, so I never tried that option, so I don't know for sure, sorry..