‘The Witness’ releases sales stats that exceed 100,000 units, Xbox One, more platforms considered except VR support

When Jonathan Blow’s “The Witness” launched on Australia Day 2016, fans were already anticipating and hyped to play the game. Approximately a week after the launch, the developer has revealed a few interesting statistics about the game and its players, a lot of which reveal some pretty positive things about the indie release.

Over at the official “The Witness” website, Blow had announced that the game already surpassed the 100,000 units sold for its combined release. Without going into specifics on which platforms sold how much, Blow confirmed that this has totalled in over USD$5 million (approx. AUS6.97 million) sold for the first week alone.

Like us on Facebook

Comparing it to another game, Braid, released by the company, it had performed better compared to the former game’s entire year’s worth of revenue. Even with the success, however, Blow assured fans that this is far from the work on “The Witness being over.”

“Right now, we are dealing mostly with PC graphics driver problems, and we are also working on adding some features to the game about configurable controls and rendering options, for PC and PS4,” said Blow on the official website.

More interesting is the fact that Blow had mentioned the studio looking at other platforms where the game can be released. Specifically, those that are being considered include the Xbox One and Mac OSX. There is even mention of two mobile platforms, Android and iOS. These appear to be drawing board ideas as of now, though the developer promises to give more details once they come.

Sadly, however, the considered platforms do not include VR reality support. According to Engadget, Blow has already debunked the idea that “The Witness” will ever come to PlayStation VR. The reason for this is that the production of “The Witness” has already been underway even before the VR headsets, specifically Sony’s then named Project Morpheus, came to light. In order for the game to truly be compatible with the PS VR, Blow said that it should have been developed and designed for the headset from the start.

There was talk, however, of how the game was previously mentioned on other VR headsets like the HTC Vive and the prominent Oculus Rift. Still, Blow had not been very optimistic about the idea. Despite stating that it can run on VR headsets, the demands for performing at the level that VR games are expected may be lacking.

Whether or not this will change in the future remains to be seen. But for now, it would be good for the studio to enjoy in the success and then go back to the drawing board to be see what else can be done with the game.

"The Witness" release trailer (Credit: YouTube/Jonathan Blow)