Just a short while Nvidia posted up what was thought to be the system requirements for playing Call of Duty: Ghosts. With the specifications demanding a x64-bit operating system, 6GB of Ram and 50GB of hard-drive space the requirements were met with surprise, and for many long-term Call of Duty players a sense of dismay when the realised they wouldn’t be able to play the latest entry in the series.

Still, hope arrived in the form of Activision who announced that Nvidia’s specifications were not official. Everyone settled down to wait, assuming that the true specifications would be more lenient. They’re not.

Activision have revealed the official minimum system requirements for playing Call of Duty: Ghosts, and they’re nearly identical to what Nvidia had to say, meaning that you’re still going to need a 64-bit operating system running 6GB of Ram. But hey, at least you only need 40GB of space instead of 50GB:

OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom™ X3 8750 2.4 GHZ or better
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 40 GB
Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450 / ATI® Radeon™ HD 5870 or better
Sound: DirectX compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® 11
Internet: Broadband Internet connection for Steam and Online Multiplayer.

These requirements are truly shocking, especially given that Battlefield 4 only asks for 4GB of Ram and considerably less install space, all while being considerably more technically impressive than Ghosts.

The requirements are also surprising given that the game is also able to run on Xbox 360 and PS3, both of which have just 512mb of Ram available to them.

I can’t help but wonder if Activision are perhaps shooting themselves in the foot a little here. Chatting amongst my less dedicated gaming pals the reason they all loved Call of Duty on PC was because they didn’t need to have a powerful system to run it. This gives Call of Duty a huge PC market, one that they just lessened considerably by wanting a minimum of 6GB of Ram. Many of the people I know run between 2GB-4GB, and have a 32-bit operating system.

That dog and those fish better looking bloody amazing, that’s all I’m saying.