This is very true when it comes to PC games. I remember an interview with one of the heads of Ensemble (about the time they announced the closure) said the original Age of Empires sold 500,000 in the first 6 months (just about enough to make profit). It's now one of the biggest RTS franchises in the world.

And on Far Cry, the scenery on the highest settings still holds its own against a huge number of games in the current generation.

BS my firend. Starcraft, warcraft RTS, Total War, Civ, Warhammer are all far bigger then AoE. Hell, I bet that there are at least a couple more strategy games out there that sell far more. And if you consider tower defense games strategy games to, then at least a dozen more.

The "Age of" franchise has sold over 20 million units averaging (for 4 games and their respective expansion pack) around 5 million sales for each iteration (including expansions). How is that not one of the biggest RTS franchises in the world?

Starcraft is huge with 10 million for the original and the sequel selling incredibly well so far, but only has two games so in total sales actually falls short of the total sales of the "Age of" franchise.

For Warcraft 3 we actually have sales data on VGChartz:

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/browse.php?name=Warcraft III

About 5 million total (game & expansion) which is about the same as an Age of Empires title.

Warhammer: Dawn of War sold 4 million including its expansion if the wiki page is to be believed.

Total War and Civ aren't RTS games but turn-based (although Total War does have a real-time tactical element) strategy.

So actually, even with the examples and franchises you've given, I stand by my original statement. The "Age of" franchise is one of the biggest RTS franchises in the world.

The game looks like it cost a fortune to make it look and play that good, so congrats to the makers on the sales.

You're all talking about the first game in a line of incredibly acclaimed and popular game series. Of course they won't have the biggest opening of all time, but those legs are definitely not a PC exclusive thing.

I admit that the legs are a bit better compared to console games, but the difference really isn't that big when comparing blockbuster titles.

Besides, Far Cry and Crysis are typically games to test new hardware, since both pushed the limits of pretty much all existing PCs at the time of release. Naturally many interested gamers didn't have the necessary hardware back then and got the game a few years later instead of getting it at launch.

Also I wonder what shio means by saying "Most console games sell most of their sales in the first month". I've just looked through some very popular games that are in the same ballpark as Crysis or slightly above and many of them sold ~35% of all their sales in the first month. And they still have some time to sell more so expect that to go down to roughly 30%. Hardly the majority isn't it ?
Why is that a bad thing anyway ? More sales at full price = more profit. Far Cry has been sold for 15€ one year after the release. I got my copy around another year later (2006) for 10€ and since the release of Crysis it has been at 5€. So you telling me that half of the sales (probably even closer to 2/3) comming from a 10€ (average) price-point is something positive ?

Btw I wonder if that number includes the Crysis GPU bundles

It only cost $22 millions, and that probably includes the engine's development costs.

Killzone 2 cost $60 millions, 3 times as much, yet still sold less than Crysis.

Halo 3 cost $250 millions, including the marketing costs. That's 11 times more expensive than Crysis, but it "only" sold less than 4 times as much.

Killzone 3 isn't out yet, no wonder it sold less

I meant Killzone 2

It's not a bad thing being front-loaded, but games typically sell on PC over long periods of time rather than heavily in the first few months. First month sales of Crysis in the US for instance were only 86,000. If a console FPS were to open with sales like that I doubt it would reach 3 million.

Killzone 2 for instance had a much larger opening month but is only at 2.5 million at the moment.

Another factor to consider is that there are no console cycles. When a new console is released, game sales of the previous console tend to decrease. This doesn't happen with PC so games can continue to sell at budget price for a very longtime, especially with DD like GOG.com. Starcraft for instance has sold for well over 10 years. It might not seem like much in terms of pure profit but it's a constant stream of revenue for the long-term. It's not like they're not profiting on PC.

It's also worth remembering that DD sales likely mean more profit (per unit sale) for publishers and developers as opposed to physical console game sales (no packaging, retailer, or platform royalty costs) especially as many insist on keeping the DD price the same as the retail price rather than passing the savings to the consumer. Publishers are definately still making a tidy sum on PC.

As for the GPU bundles I have no idea. I assume Crytek have some deal in place with NVidia.

Most copies were probably sold for like $5 - $10 and it took years for it to happen, but kudos none the less.