The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Why Beth Hasn't Shown Graphics and Gameplay

[Y-Maker]

Why would Beth show XBOX in the videos/previews, and XBOX in the screenshots (most of em anyways). Why would they show crappy draw distance? Wouldn't the proper thing to do would showcase your best work? I know why. Because Beth wants us to, most importantly, get our hopes down, or lowered, so when we get the game and discover that the carrots are weighted, that draw distance isn't as crappy as it looks, that weapons can actually hit targets, that everything isn't as bad as we thought, we'll be excited and go crazy.

[Wyvern]

It is being developed on a PC for the Xbox 360. Then once it works on the Xbox 360 they will take that code and alter it to work on PCs. Xbox 360 code will not immediately work on a PC just because it was written on a PC. Bethesda is showing Xbox 360 footage and not PC footage because the Xbox 360 is what is going to get the most sales. There's going to be a little outrage by fans of Battlefield 3 when everyone realizes it won't look that pretty on the Xbox 360. Bethesda is avoiding that issue by playing to the weakest system.

[ApplePowerPC]

Likely the Xbox version is the most completed/ tuned for the system. No sense showing the PC version when they haven’t actually competed or even worked out how everything is going to scale on that platform. Showing the most complete features you have at the time is better than showing things that might not make the cut or are incomplete, they aren't doing oblivion this time, and they know the hardware. A Bethesda isn't Dice or other developers who do scale their console releases back from the PC versions. Bethesda does it this way: Xbox the lead platform.

[MacIntel]

Probable reasons:

1. Because Skyrim on a PC isn't completely done yet compared to Xbox.
2. Because achieving good graphics on an Xbox is harder than a PC where you can brute force it with in tri-sli cards.
3. Because their primary user base is Xbox and that's who they want to market to.
4. Because Oblivion was primarily a PC Game that a lot of people didn't like the Xbox port of and they want to show they aren't just a PC game company.
5. Because they want to save the piece de resistance for last.
6. Because they know their PC footage will be compared to games like BF3 much more than their Xbox footage.
7. Because their Xbox footage is more impressive for an Xbox than their PC footage is for a PC.

[Common]

I don't think the majority of people who buy it for PC will have such a different experience than Xbox users. Most people do not have an uber super duper computer. They will most likely have to set things at medium settings. Just like in Oblivion, people didn't have the computer specs to run it at high and in my case it ran better on the Xbox at the time than my computer. Now I can play it with all sorts of massive mods and have it set on ultra. But, what you’re seeing in the screen shots and video is most likely how most will experience it anyway.

[desilva]

It's been about a week and I am at a standstill making' those jokes. I didn't mind the graphics; they were at a standstill good. Not the best, but still a lot better than Oblivion's graphics (on a side note, think about how graphics have improved in the past years. Didn't Morrowind have really good graphics for its time. Now look at how obsolete they are!), which it's supposed to. I don't mind graphics as much as other game aspects and the graphics I saw in the videos were great.

[RyanInt]

I at a standstill don’t purchase the "don’t wish to disappoint console player" theory. Only the most stubborn console devotees think that consoles nearly as good as PC centric games. The vast majority of people on the Xbox should know by now that their version will be inferior. I agree that it’s probably just that the Xbox version is the most polished right now. Maybe they are secretly adding DX11 goodies and 4096x4096 textures, or even better using a mega texture like idTech 5.

[AZUL]

Seems like a smart business move to me, if said six year old hardware happens to be the platform their primary demographic is on, which, I'm pretty sure it is, and that's probably why Bethesda has shown only Xbox 360 footage. They're marketing the game towards Xbox 360 players first and foremost and want to show the game as they will experience it. But maybe they will eventually show the PC version, maybe they're just saving that for later (As we can clearly see, Bethesda likes to leave fans anticipating new information.) or maybe not, only time will tell.