http://i.imgur.com/fHs9WgH.jpg

The top version could be ran on a modern mid range pc at 1080p 30fps, with a top gpu(so that's only a £230 gpu, not a £500-£1000 gpu like people think) running it at 60+fps at 1080p. If you want to argue about price, then post the specs CD R said the pc was (or are you just guessing?). The top image also looks like a next gen game. 

The bottom image is a joke; poor lightning, low res textures, terrible draw distance, no tesselation or any surface variation for that matter etc. A company that can't make a decent graphics engine makes you wonder about their competency as programmers. If they couldn't do that, then how buggy will this game be? How much effort have they actually put in etc? How much of what they are claiming is in fact more rubbish and PR lying to fans.

At the end of the day, good graphics make a game more immersive so this is a big loss to a lot of people and I won't be buying a game that looks so bad.

Yeah because all a PC needs is a £230 GPU (already almost as much as a console costs) isnt it?

And I never mentioned a $500-1000 GPU, I mentioned a $1000 PC which is what you would need if you wanted to run the game as it looked originally. No guessing, just an obvious statement to make.

You might consider the bottom image to be a 'joke', but thats what most games look like to most PC gamers. Just because devs showed you the max capabilities of the games engine, it doesnt mean most people were going to play it at that setting, and the only point im making... im glad that they didnt consume resources in pleasing the minority which would have either led to another delay, or sacrificing optimisation on the hardware most people will be playing the game on.

What? A $150 GPU (the dollar is strong) like Nvidia GTX 750 Ti can play games like Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4 in 1080p with full detail only at around 15-25 fps and even then it struggles greatly. A $250 like Radeon R9 280 plays them at roughly 30-40 fps and only when reaching a $400 plus GPU like GTX 780 Ti is when it is possible to have 60fps stable. And we are talking about these two games. Now talking about a open world RPG like The Witcher 3 with those upper visuals? Never, simply impossible to have something running well even in 30fps with less than $300-400 GPUs.

A £600 pc is cheap frankly. Most peoples phones cost more and are replaced after 2 years so if you are complaining about people able to buy a mid range pc then that is your problem and issue to deal with (e.g. any half decent job can allow you to buy that type of pc every month). As I said, PC gamers are fed up of being held back by the consoles and a huge market is losing out because of this (PC gaming is larger than that of the 8th gen market so actually you are wrong about it being the minority). You can eat garbage and claim it tastes great, but don't complain when people disagree.

lol you still dont get it do you?

You are focusing too much on console vs pc to see anything else.

This thread is about the downgrade from a level of detail PC which the majority of gamers have wouldnt be capable of running.

Dont play the 'pc v console' card, when its really just <5% of PC gamers that are impacted by this downgrade because everyone else wouldnt have achieved that level of detail with their PC specifications, even if the game was released with those option settings.

Once again, I state that the only point in making here is that the revenue minority of high end PC gamers will generate for CD projeckt isnt enough for them to put the effort in when it would be more logical optimising the game to be best as it can on consoles, and optimised so more low-mid end PC gamers can get more from their hardware.

I dread the day when/if greater resources are allocated to PC elitists instead of the gamers who will account for the most revenue.

You are making most of these facts up. You have no idea what the average PC is capable running nowadays so stop assuming that they couldn't play this game as it looked. You are also ignoring the simple option of graphics settings. Can't run at ultra? Try low settings then. 

Again, assuming that a) few high end gamers exist (which is wrong b) you have to be high end to play it how it was (even though I have said otherwise). You are now just making things up to justify why a brand new game should look pants.

I'd assume he has an idea. Actually we know what  an average PC would do, since Steam publish this data. You'd be surprised about the results.

Since someone else opted to use Steam data (most non PC users seem to cite this more so than actual PC gamers which is weird), I'd like to ask, do you think that Steam HWS is 100% correct, does it encompasse all PC gamers despite the fact you can opt out? (I opted out years ago).

Before that I'd like to ask, how do you know who is a PC gamer and who is not? It is interesting to me.

What kind of "interesting"?, most people I've seen phrase it like that usually want to find something new to argue about, I doubt you finding out isn't going to change the answer you were originally going to give.