I am vey concerned that the minimum system requirements are so high that PC sales will be dramatically affected. After 5-7 years of recession, depending where in the world you are, I don't think it can be expected that gamers will just automatically upgrade. For many,it will need a whole new PC given the video and cpu requirements, soIam vry worried hat PC sales are going o be dramitcally affeced by these system requirements.

CD Projekt RED are not big enough to see a 30-50% decline in Witcher 3 sales over Witcher 2 sales, without it having a huge impact. Unless PS4 sales can be through the roof compared wih 360 sales for Witcher 2, I am really worried about future operations if such high system requirements do affect PC sales to the degree I think they might.

What are your thoughts?

It's really hard to tell since PC rigs can be so different from person to person, you really have to wait till the game is released to see if it will run. I'm hoping the stats are conservative since mine comes a bit under in some areas and i'm not willing to shell out another couple hundred for a new video card. I also hope that there is no hardware checker that says hey you can't run the game. They had that on the original Witcher with an old laptop I had after I forced the game it ran fine.

I think PS4 and Xbone sales are going to be pretty good for this title and really for PC gamers, the ones I know anyway, the minimum requirements are too bad.

I am really, really confused about one thing.
Knowing the hardware specifications of both PS4 and XB1, I really wonder why has Witcher 3 on PC such drastic requirements... even if I count in the inevitable larger overhead created by Windows/DirectX.

There is something odd about this... so, no preorder from me this time, I will wait and see what the real requirement are after the game is finally released. And if I have to postpone the purchase into 2016/17 - it works for me, I have a lot of games to play right now and I am in no rush.

Four years ago, I preordered Witcher 2 on this very site and I did so despite the fact, that my computer was slightly below required hardware specifications. However, I also had a new machine in the pipeline, so to speak, at that time. This is the very same machine I am sitting at right now - which I could upgrade fairly easily to meet Witcher 3 requirements (and I could even get Witcher 3 for free along the way – how silly is that?).
But I do not want to.
Witcher 2 is very poorly optimized even today and while I do believe, that Witcher 3 will be really good game story-wise, I am assuming a very cautious position regarding the necessary hardware, as CD Projekt historically has a very bad track record, when it comes to hardware optimization and if Witcher 3 hw reqs are of any indication, this trend goes on and I see no reason to support it with my money.
However, the final nail in the coffin (for me) was the premature announcement of the expansions. I understand, that Witcher 3 was already delayed at least twice (gee, I wonder why) and development of the expansions is more or less independent on the main game at this point, but announcing such thing BEFORE the main game is released? That is very insensitive, to put it mildly.
So, no preorder from me this time around, I will wait for some drastic sale/giveaway (and saving for a new computer in the meantime).

Every PS4 and Xbox One has mostly the exact same hardware, except for some newer production methods in later versions of the consoles to trim down the build costs. Because they all use the same hardware, a developer can code a game so that they will use that hardware with a very good efficiency.

With PC's however, practically every system is different and because of this the developers have to code the software so that it can use a wide range of hardware. Because of this they can't tune their software to a certain hardware combinations and thus you will need more powerful hardware compared to a console.

I'm not a programmer myself, but this is roughly what a programmer friend told me, I could be a bit off with things but I think this is largely correct.

Absolutely true - yet certain things are pretty predictable no matter what. And knowing, that the consoles are running on AMD 8x APUs at roughly 1,6+ GHz with AMD/ATi graphics (fairly powerful, though)... well, the disporportion is obvious.
And what is really confusing, is the CPU side of things... because AMD Phenom II x4 940 is nowhere close the Intel Core i5 2500K - yet, both of them are being listed as "minimum CPU".
So... this is where my scepticism stems from.

And do not get me wrong - there is still a distant possibility, that Witcher 3 has in fact overblown hw reqs (just to be sure this time) and that its real reqs will not be so demanding after all... in which case I will be probably pulling my hair for not preordering. :-)
It is just not very probable at this point...

I'm not up to date at all with how AMD processors compare to Intel processors, so I'll take your word for it. :)

I recently upgraded to i5 4690k and GTX 970 myself so I should have no problems in theory but I'll let you know how it runs :)

Another factor that you have to consider when looking at this Console vs PC, Consoles are optimized for gaming, where as a PC could be running in any number of states with any number of configurations, it is easier to develop the games around a known configuration that has limited available modifications.

I do agree though on the PC requirements listing the 940 and the 2500 as comparable, I would have thought they would have listed the 6300 as comparable to the 2500 at least.

The proof seems to be in, given we have a 26gb install rather than the 40gb they said (is it 40gb on console?)

Also, from everything I have seen, the game on all low options still looks damn sweet and there is not a huge difference between low and high! If ever there was a game that I wouldn't mind if I HAD to play on low settings, it's Witcher 3!