1: Increased focus on console versions take a lot out of the tech, having a flexible cross platform engine beats out using the full available tech on the PC. And the first one wasn't even great looking to begin with.

2: Agreed. Very much agreed.

Expanding upon point 1; look at Dungeon Siege 3, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, the Command & Conquer series, Civilization V, recent statements from EA regarding racing sims (I made a thread on it that no one bother to read... ), every single FPS being made (practically) having more and more narrow corridor gameplay, regenerating health and near infinite ammo and you'll see a trend. Consoles are making games as a whole, dumber and are the main reason that depth is being sacrificed for action and effects. Stories get dumber, everything gets easier, more and more elements being tossed to move more units (and generally failing to do so). RPG's are where this is the most evident since there's the most depth to remove here, in five years' time, there won't be a single RPG in development that isn't either a MMO or filled to the brim with pure action with nearly no stats, skills, inredible item variation. Heed my words; the RPG genre is decaying slowly but certainly. The Witcher 2 is a fresh breath on this putrid wind but will remain the exception, sadly. Pretty soon, "RPG's" will be too action packed to satisfy RPG fans and just a tad too deep to satisfy action fans, ending up in a no-man's land from which there two means of escape; going full retard (i.e; pure action) or rebooting the genre and heading back to the roots. Both these will be of great risk to developers and both may very well fail.

In short; I don't like where things are headed at all.

i like when i hear companies make the game for the pc, then outsource for the console.  Like blizzard is looking for someone to make diablo 3 on console.  they aren't wasting their time or dumbing down the pc versino so that it is able to be console.

even though dragon age wasn't that good, you could still tell it was done for pc first and ported to console.  Things start to turn to shit when it is the other way around or they want to make them the same. 

What annoys me most is when this attrocity happens and you hear console only players going crazy over how amazing said game is.  Its like shut up, they RUINED the game, and you guys are praising them? 

Yeah, outsourcing the port is a good idea imo. Frees up the teams to do what they were supposed to in the beginning, lends work to other companies and ensures that the respective versions end up with better quality. Blizzards are surely on to something good here and appear to want to keep the PC as their main platform of choice. Most their games don't work too well on consoles at any rate, strategy games, MMO and hack & slash is hardly gamepad material. Luckily, Blizzard seems to realize this. I tried playing the 360 version of Dragon Age a couple of months after my roommate moved in, it was atrocious compared to the PC version! So slow and cumbersome and the visuals were... underwhelming.

I think we're on the same page here!

Apart from the stunning visuals, the game itself will be mind blowing. Just finish my third round of the Witcher, in difficult, and I still find new things and new quests in the game. If they put the same amount of work in the story than in the first the Witcher, it's going to be mind blowing.

even though i don't want it to be say diablo or witcher or many other type of typical rpg games in terms of items.

I do wish they would increase or at least variate the equipment a bit more.  You know have a few different outfits that looks somewhat different.  Have a few more swords and also make the secondary weapons like axes/maces/daggers and so on be actually used.  in the old game there was no point ot picking them up but to sell or jus tmake you look cooler having a big ass mace dangling from your hip.

I prefer gameplay over graphics. Although I will check out Witcher 2 despite having hated the first one.

I like they try a semi-open world approach and multiple solutions to each situation.

Looks good.

Hopefully they improved the gameplay quite a bit. Graphics isn't everything.

Depth of field is still one of my favorite graphical tricks.

What a pretty game.

They already promised to have lot more armors.

But there's a huge problem with secondary weapons. Witcher is taught to fight with sword period.

There aren't any witchers who use axe etc. as main weapon in the book.

Also if CDP released game where best weapon is axe there would be angry mob protesting in front of their office nxt day.

That world is created in the books and there;s no space for usable secondary weapon here. For the same reasons you can't customize face or race or skin or hair color of main hero.

Well 2 looks to have improved everything about the first one, with overhauled Batman: AA inspired combat (and stealth) and a custom built engine that allows them greater control over characters etc for more dynamic quests and conversations, the main quest is shorter but with a lot less fetch quests, there is more high quality side content, the game world is bigger and more detailed and best of all their new engine streams in assets so if you played through the game in one sitting you would only encounter about 5 loading screens!!!

@ people saying that consoles are holding games back 

while I agree they are, according to the developers their engine is capable of producing the same graphics on consoles

"Of course, what I say can’t be too official, but from the tests that we’ve done so far it’s possible to do a game that looks as good as what you’ve seen on trailers, and it works on consoles smoothly."

http://beefjack.com/news/if-the-witcher-2-comes-to-consoles-the-graphics-wont-take-a-hit/

so if the devs are telling the truth these graphics are possible on consoles, obviusly at a lower resolution etc.