So a standard "low/med/high, shadow enable/disable" settings. Thats not what I asked.  I wanna know how the difference is between low vs ultra in the "made with pc in mind" Witcher 2. If the difference is as minimal as W3, then no one should blame consoles, since it means the devs were taking into account the low end pc users from the start.  Scalability will never make the game go from 2013 to 2015. It's a whole new version.

So found a comparison of W2 low vs ultra.

More proof that youtube is a terrible means of comparing graphics. The difference between low and ultra in the Witcher 2 is fairly large when seen in person but this video barely shows any difference.

The belief that linking the Steam HWS accounts for all PC users all having low end HW needs to really stop, I just asked around 15 of my friends who main PC (not all are PC only) and asked would they straight away source the Steam HWS to point out all PC users if not PC in general and they said a resounding "no", 3 of them even said that going for the HWS first and only stems from those who don't really game on PC as much or those that don't know it well enough, I'd be inclined to agree with them, people like Linus or Tek syndicate and PC gamer hardly ever throw up the Steam HWS a lot of the time like people do on here, those guys are within the fanbase/platform of PC and by default tend to know better than random people linking to a survey and claiming it accounts for all PC users (you say majority which in turn equals more than which again means).

The thing is people who link this never account for those who don't opt into the HWS, I don't opt into it and not for origin either, there's plenty of PC gamers who don't use Steam and use other clients and places where there is no DRM like GoG, yet some people just go for the HWS as if it;s meant to encompasse all PC gamers as a whole and then slap majority/minority and then simply just isn't the case, it;d be like me looking at some random site survey and claiming all PS4 users do this or buy that and don't support something else and you'd definitely argue different, this is what's going on right now and it;s not just you and me either, ask other PC users on here if Steam HWS accounts for practiccally all PC users (the userbase in general) and you'll get difference answers but not those your looking for in supporting a single HWS.

I don't know why you're pinning it all on Crysis, there's been plenty of games that looked great on PC when also paired with a consoles, games like Skyrim have shown there can be a world of difference (which the devs didn't put in for but it's proven very possible than simply impossible which is what we're going with here), there's been good multiplats that looked a step beyond before than saying there hasn't been.

Star Citizen isn't going to be the only one either, Kingdom come deliverance is being made for PC first and consoles second, especially since 8th gen was one of thier goals but not a main goal like PC was from the start and so far there's no ultra special marketing rights to any of the two either (which it should stay that way imo as it;s PC first and should be marketed as).

Who's to say there won't be any more like Star Citizen and KCD though?, who's claiming there won't be in the next year or 4?, they will definitely come about that's for sure and over time people upgrade their hardware anyway than simply forcing themselves to stay back in 2008.

Also if you go soley by the HWS you'll notice upgrades are definitely going up in number rather than all specs going down and staying stagnant.

Oh I agree, but in terms of scalability I'm looking what Bohemia Int does. The difference between low and max in ARMA for example is big. In W2 it's very minimal. I'll try to find some examples.

Honest question, what kind of hardware would be needed to run that in realtime? Im pretty sure my GTX970 would barely scratch 1080p30 and the consoles would probably be forced to run at 900p and 720p with dips. As much Id like the game look that way it would simply be too costly to the company and to hardware.

Steam HW is pretty representative of the pc community, it stands for more than %70 of pc gaming, it is the biggest vendor of games. The share of low end hardware would be much bigger if we include the users of LoL for example, that game runs on nearly everything making it accessible to other parts of the world where people don't have much high end stuff.

They were taking into account the low end console gamers. Not the low-end PC gamers. That's not really difficult to grasp. 

They started developing the game before the new consoles were released. When they came out, they adjusted to them, and the rest is history.

Yet Witcher 3 still requires a pretty good PC to run well even at its lowest settings.

I guess a GTX970 would be in the "min reqs" list and W3 would be PC exclusive, I think.