derenek, your math seems to be missing a term. You claim the number of people capable of running a game is the total market base. You need to include a factor z, for the percentage of players capable of running it who actually purchase it. Then you need to consider how the visual effects will change that z factor, and if that will generate more customers than the y number you lost by increasing the requirements.

If I recall correctly Daton a graphic card of 512 megs back early 2007 was very expensive. So if you were able to buy all new parts including a monitor and the tower all for less then 800$ I want to know how. Frankly it,s hard to believe.

Crysis was a pc hog and still is today. Danm it's recommended specs are asking for a core 2 duo. That's becoming main stream now. I don't think most computers had core 2 duo back a year ago and this was Jan 2007. Lets not forget we are talking about the average gamer here. Not mr hard core gamer that buys a new pc every 15 months or so.

I'm sorry but I have to dissagree with you.

The positive correlation between Advertising and Sales is much stronger though!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=8800+GT&x=0&y=0

an 8800 GT, easily capable of running Crysis on more than max, was 200$ at the time. And that's brand new. You could and still can easily get it cheaper than that.

Add to that

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-inspiron-518?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs

Any one of these (overpriced, but we're looking for something that is accessable to joe-average) has more than enough power to run Crysis on max - the only thing that needs to be changed is the GFX Card, which we've bought above.

Keep in mind all those prices are from a 5 second search, from retailers that are not price-perfect.

So no, Crysis is not and never was a pc hog. You just need to get hardware that has good power for money. The 8800GT excells in that, because they utterly underpriced it for some reason (to the point where they had to improve the performance of their 500$ card because their 200$ card nearly outperformed it)

Price is of today which is 13 months later.

Daton  both Inspiron destop that you link to don't have the recommended graphic card of 512. And those are based on todays prices and not the price of a pc back november 2007. The quad core prioce was outrageous back then

Moreover if you try to look at the prices of then just ram, monitor and processor would of brought your pc at over 800$ back then. Core 2 duo was  new 512 meg cards are not even standard today and ram is ram it cost what it cost.

All this to say that if you wanted to play crysis in November of 2007 you needed a very very top of the line pc (playing as you stated with max setting). That is not the  majority of the gamers out there. I'm sorry that's a fact. I don't know anybody even today that as a quad core. I'ma gamer and I did not even bought a 512 card 3 months ago when I bought my new pc.

July of 07, Q6600 dropped to $266 (MSRP).  That's hardly ridiculous for a quad.

8800GT is more than sufficient to actually run Crysis-on high might be another argument altogether, but having 512MB of VRAM is largely irrelevant, if and only if the card is worthwhile.  For instance, a 512MB x1650pro is still going to run Crysis just as shittily as a 256MB x1650pro.

Precisely Sole Soul. And I can confirm the power of the 8800GT. I'm using it myself (and have seen it used by others), and it runs Crysis on more than max flawlessly.