Why Force Unleashed is not on PC
Posted by Jeff on May 12th, 2008Finally we have a confirmed reason for why The Force Unleashed will not be released for PC. The producer of Force Unleashed, Cameron Suey, in an interview with Videogamer.com, stated that it would be too hard to develop a game which could satisfy both killer gaming rigs and outdated ones.
“The PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn’t be the same game,” Suey said.
One might ask why not give the PC version a more scaled down version of the game so that it would reach a wider install base, well Suey says that would not be taking advantage of what the $4,000 rigs can do, so “it’s going to be not as good or only for a select few people.”
However don’t get too down as Suey did have some good things to say about the PC in LucasArt’s future. “That said we’re definitely not out of the PC market. It’s just with our choice for this game, with the known quantity for the consoles, and every console is the same with the same processing power, it made sense for us to develop for those consoles.”
May 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Requiring a $4000 rig is a gross overstatement. Yes, the majority of people with PCs have “intel integrated” video — but anyone who ‘games’ regularly and has a fairly up-to-date machine (past 2-3 years) can generally keep up with 360’s graphics. A brand new gaming rig (about $1200) would have far MORE power than a 360. A $4000 gaming computer is hardly a ‘requirement’ — as I understand it, this is also being released on the Wii, PS2, DS… ‘cmon, a PS2?!
May 13th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Dude, that’s the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard, next to the dumber ones I’ve heard.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
This is just pure laziness. Tell my one other multiplatform game that doesn’t have this exact same problem? Bioshock? Gears of War? UT3? They all have the problem, but yet all managed to solve it and turned out quite well on the PC.
Very sad excuse IMO.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
lol, i would definitely be feeling the shaft if i were a PC gamer.
if the gist of this statement made by lucasarts is basically that they need hig powered consoles to generate the games graphics and technology, then as aforementioned….why release it on every single gaming platform known to mankind? i think if they are sticking to a comment like this, then the game should only come out on PS3 and 360. screw the lesser consoles. they are basically just a dumbed down version of what the game SHOULD be.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:07 am
You have to be ****ing joking, what is the wii version then? It can produce better graphics than my $1000 rig? Some people spend that kind of cash on their PC so they can play these games. Idiotic reason. The game will be crap like every other star wars game though, until it gets modded on the PC. Wake the hell up Force Unleashed Devs.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Gay. That about sums it up. There will be no multiplayer on the 2 best console platforms anyway. So I think that it can all be summed up as being homosexual. Thank you, that is all.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:40 am
Yeah, agreed, its retarded, it was stupid enough that they decided to not make a PC version, but the reasoning behind that decision is the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever heard.
My computer is pretty cheap($800 roughly), and I can play Crysis at pretty decent settings, I’m about to put a new GPU in, it cost about 150 bucks, and eats almost every game on the market, so I don’t believe it, my PC wasn’t much more expensive than the Xbox360($500), or the PS3($800) when they first came out..
So they should probably cancel the PS3 version, and the Xbox360, not everyone can afford those systems, oh, and not everybody has Wii either, better scrap that too, heck why not just scrap the whole project while we’re at it..
I call bullshit, anyone care to second that?
Peace
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:25 am
THATS CRAP,CRISIS IS FOR THE PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WY NOT FORCE UNLEASHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BILD A COMPUTER YOURSELF ITS CHEAPER.I COLD BILD 1 FOR 2000 WITH 3 MONTERS AND FULL LOGITECH GAMEING ACSERES AND 2 NVIDIA GFX DX10 CARDS. or then agin i colde just by a ps3 for 400.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 am
*holds up hand* Second
This is cetainlly a let down…To be honest its also insulting, if they were going to come right out and lie about themselves being lazy then why not spend a couple of weeks thinking up a proper excuse to stake their reputation on… Instead they try to feed us some half hearted crap about people not having powerful enough computers. My computer would likely chew up their half-ass game and spit it out, a mangled shell of what it was ment to be…
So lets think about this, use some of the famed human common sense. What is it they are doing with PSP & PS2, they have been feeding us this shit about revolutionary new graphic engine software. I hardly believe that those old consoles can run that complex sofware that didn’t even exist at the time when they were designed.
I think we’ve been had poeple.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:37 am
“with the known quantity for the consoles” There we go you see, direct quote from that interview. They know more people have consoles and they’ll make more money from it. I think the reasoning he/she/it gives is TOTALLY flawed, if it will run on the xboxthreeshitty then it will run on a LOW end pc. If it doesn’t then tough, but it’s no reason to cut out pc games from the entire market. I think I agree with Smoke, I also call bullshit, and I won’t buy anything from LucasFarts on principle now, no matter how good it is. I just won’t give them my money anymore! GRRRRR SO - MUCH - ANGER.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:55 am
As a 30+ year Star Wars fan & devoted pc gamer, this… no other term for it yes, BS, makes me very sad, insulted, & disappointed.
What was the lst truly decent SW game? Gotta be Empire at War back in ‘06. Before that, had to be Jedi Knight 2/Jedi Academy, which was ‘02, ‘03?
Most of the others were nothing more than bastardized ports of console games that were horribly cumbersome.
And what the HELL happened to the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series? Haven’t seen ANYTHING on THAT genre at ALL. Alliance was one of my favorites, I STILL play it once in a while, but it’s almost painfully archaic visually, even WITH the monumental efforts at modding and retexturing of some folks.
Tell ya what LucasArts… you pull out an over the top, MASSIVE new edition to the flight sim, including ALL SW timeline periods, SERIOUS high end graphical power, tools and designed for modding capability, and I’ll THINK about forgiving you for slighting us on Force Unleashed (which otherwise looks to be absolutely INCREDIBLE).
Folks like us, the geeks who LOVE our computers, are the one’s who carried the torch for DECADES on Star Wars gaming, all the way back to the arcade death star game. We don’t deserve to be left out like this, simply because we’re not as big a market share as the console game systems.
This slight honestly really hurt my feelings. Refusing to devote the time and resources to include us is insulting enough, but this lame ass excuse and it’s implicit insult to our intelligence, would cause me to actually kick your ass if you’d said it to my face.
You should be ashamed.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Hello there
Im a JK2 player and i like the game very much.
But we should get a second one. Jedi knight 4 would be great xD
May 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Just wanted to throw this out here..
I was looking around, and I seen that World of Warcraft on the PC has about 9.3 million players..
Now, I don’t play the game, which says to me that not all PC gamers play the game..
So a little bit of logic applied here says to me that there is at least over 9.3 million PC gamers..
So enough of this there isn’t a large enough gaming community to make money BS, we have the numbers, we just don’t buy crappy games..
Thats why there sales suck, if you look at my game collection, it contains nothing but games that were award winners, game of the year, rpg of the year, etc, etc,..
This is because I research games before I buy them, if they get good reviews, and my fellow gamers like them, then, and only then do I try them, if they pass the “I like them” test, then and only then do I buy them.
You can blame piracy till the end of time, it still won’t change the fact that it had more to do with the games sucking than anything else.
$60 x 9,000,000 = $540,000,000
Thats a rough estimate for how much money they could make on the PC, if the game doesn’t suck by PC standards..
Even if they make half of that amount, its still nearing up on the sales of GTAIV for both XBox360, and PS3 so far..
Which from my understanding broke sales records..
So whats the fucking problem?
May 26th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
What a let down. It’s simply a disgrace.
I don’t know about the rest of the PC Star Wars fans but I’ve been waiting for a decent Jedi Knight style game to come out for… well… years is it now? This is sad but I miss it so much that I tried to get Jedi Knight Academy to run on my Quad core 64 bit 4Gb ram Geforce 8800 vista 64 ultimate box the other day. Unsuprisingly it didn’t work
As a developer, I can buy that they would favor building it for the xbox360 and ps3 because they can deliver a known performance and make it great. Fair enough - deeply disappointed - but fair enough.
But the fact that they’ve gone and made a PSP version is just a joke. It puts all the whinging about performance issues on PC’s out the window. Worse, it’s a poke in the eye to all of the loyal PC gamers who’ve bought ALL the StarWars games since their early beginning when the PC was the ONLY choice of platform.
More over, they’re making a Wii version. Goodie. We’ve got videos of the producers and devs saying how cool it will be to wield a lightsaber. Thanks - non of the additional development time spend getting the gesture recognition just right could have gone to the PC version. Don’t get me wrong - by all means do an awesome wii version and don’t cut corners - but what about us?!?!?
I hate playing FPS on consoles - the experience is totally different and with a few notable exceptions (heavenly sword spings to mind…) - poor in comparison to the PC version.
Lucasarts saving grace? At least we won’t get a crappy console port like Bioshock (great great story, graphics felt poor and the performance was buggy on the PC version). But I’d still have bought it even if the reviews said it was awful.
So c’mon lucas arts - ok we won’t get the force unleashed (booooooooooo :() but give us SOMETHING! PC gamers are bored of RTS and stratgey starwars games (not that most of them weren’t fun/great). Galaxies was awful - hate to say it but there you are… I wanted it to be great but it wasn’t… The KOTOR games were suprisingly amazingly good but they’ve been abandoned… Bring back Jedi Knight! Crysis had no trouble running on a vast range of PC’s - what’s your excuse?
Regards,
One of the (I suspect) millions of let down fans
May 31st, 2008 at 5:51 am
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith never came out to PC to! don´t tell me pc’s can´t handle that (same goes for the TFU, they made handheld versions for crying out loud, any middle end pc can reach that)… of course their problem is piracy (and they are damn right about that)! But it still makes me mad i can’t play any of the games… maybe some day when some programmer dedicates his life into the conversion of the game for pc lol cause I ain’t playing in no console, not with the same joy anyway (I need my keybord with dozens of buttons and my mouse, the natural extension of my arm!)
June 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
let me understand this…Half Life 2…all three (half life 2…eps 1 and 2..have all been games created that can run on a wide range of hardware..and yet…Lucasarts cant do the same with what im sure PC gamers including myself, is a game that ppl are salivating to play…i dont buy it…sry
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I get weird notion that its gonna be a big flop…. for all the hype that they’re creating about the game…. it better live upto its standards. otherwise god save your 4 years of hard work… c’mon all of you guys, tell me, u’ve watched the wii video that was posted recently on this website… is it really that satisfactory??? the saber combat… the force lightning…. somethings not right, especially with “Haden Blackman” and his big mouth… he’s really startin to piss me off.
June 14th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
WTF. An archaic pc could play TFU twice as good as a ps2 and yet they can make it for that. This in completley unfair if they are to do this then they should make a kotor 3 and make it only for pc users. My system didn’t even cost $1000 and it runs pretty much everything in max, how the hell will not run TFU. Neither euphoria nor DMM looks that cpu intense, plus most people own at least a mid-pc and even those have better processing power than a 360 or even a ps3. Not to mentnion some monitors have even higher definition than a tv (1080i sometimes p depends on the monitor) and yet they don’t mention that. As a final note: (no offense) if one cannot afford a decent computer, one is not able to afford a 50-60$ game.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I agree to Mustang - this marketing is out of this world. As star wars fan I am really getting bored of all these sentences “it is amazing”, “Working hard to make best blablabla” Every web doc and not only with TFU, but all Star Wars franchise makes me sometimes sick - Cmon man! Make a game! We will buy it anyway!
Indiana Jones - also great marketing, lot of web docs and blablabla - but was movie as great as any of old ones?
Few days ago played again Jedi outcast and Jedi Academy. Academy sucks in story but is so satisfying with fights, and Outcast is just great… I really would like to see Jedi Knight series born again.
Last thing. I do not know how you think about it. But why they put so many extra shining effects when in TFU some force power is used. In Episode 3 - Anakin vs. Obi Wan when they both use force push against each other there is no shining light around them and it is great. Why in games they put that crap in?
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
This is all WRONG. I am so pissed their not releasing it for pc. I loved the other games and I would be willing to pay an easy $50 for this game and hundreds of thousands of other ppl would too. We all know the game is made on a freakn PC so PUT IT ON PC!!!!!! Every pc could run it with cheap upgrades. I am so pissed about this.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
This is a real let-down from LucasArts, once the number one PC game designer on the planet. If it can be done on a Wii, it can be done on a PC. The numbers are there for profit, just see World of Warcraft.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Unbelievable….totally unbelievable. LucasArts used to be the PC-version of Squaresoft in creating great games with great multiplayer, and now they are a complete disappointment. They had an ideal opportunity to take the newest and most innovative multiplayer designs and apply them directly to this game. A lot of gamers have been waiting for something that was as good as the original LucasArts PC titles like JK, Tie-Fighter, etc..
Whatever the reason for the abandonment of the PC, LucasArts is going to lose a lot because of it.
July 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
What the hell??? if there saying they dont want to dumb down the expirence by making it for slower computers then why the hell are they making this game for the DS???!?!?!?!? its a stupid mobile phone with out the phone part!! god!
just do what stranglehold did and make duel cores the minimum! if the person doesnt have a duel core by now then i think they proberly got a PS3 or 360 anyway! its not hard to port a game! so many companies do it!
check out the petition at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/g5d4iu5f/petition.html
it now has 28083 total signatures and now you should sign it too!!!
July 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Its not about graphics. Its about the processors. PS3 and 360 have far more processing power then the vast majority of PCs. PS3 can run what, 8 threads at the same time without having to split clock time and the 360 can run 6. Your duo core can run….4
they already ran reviews on the ps2 version that said it wasnt as good.
personally, i think they need to cancel everything but the 360 and ps3 versions.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Sounds like their just being lazy, they’ve been developing this game for so long their tired of it. My pc only cost me $800 and i can play anything out there right now maxed out and never dip below 40 fps at the most stressful times, large battles, lots of npcs on the screen etc. Their just making excuses, laziness in its purest form.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Most gamers who would buy this game for PC( me for one) would have an updated system. I think it’s unfair to all the PC gamers that they can’t play this awesome game because there might be a couple people who would have to turn all the settings down. Lucasarts will be losing lots of customers if they don’t make a pc version.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Oh God. Not again.
First of all, the Wii, PS2, DS and PSP versions do not have fantastic graphics of the new physics engines. And, I’m sorry, but last time I checked Bioshock and Crysis and all the other game that have PC versions don’t use these new engines that require insane amounts of processing power. In fact, the amount of processing power required is why the new engines are only on the 360 and PS3. And I agree that the $4000 thing is an exaggeration, but the point he is trying to make is that a 360-quality version would be unplayable on low-end PCs (which are definitely out there). If they made a watered-down version to compensate for the lower technology, you guys with higher-end PCs (which are also definitely out there) would complain about that because you cannot possibly be satisfied with anything. You’re all just being big spoiled brats. And you guys aren’t even considering every factor that goes into this decision because all you care about is yourselves. There are deadlines and budget restrictions. They simply did not have time to accomodate everyone’s demands, so they decided to appease the console owners, who in this day and age are beginning to outnumber PC gamers. Like it or not, businesses don’t care about all their customers. They only care about whichever customers will put the most food on their tables. Because that’s what business is for: to make money to support yourself so that you can survive. So just shut your bratty, spoiled, whiny little mouths, appreciate what you have, and get the hell over yourselves.