Do BF4 and AC4 even look that much better on next gen? I dont think so. I saw a video of AC4 PS3 vs PS4, and other than being a little sharper there was almost no difference. Your mom sure as hell wouldn't be able to tell. (here is that AC4 video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIHH_PNwcVE

I havent checked it out yet but I fear the same for BF4.

Then we have BF4 at 720P on X1...uggh. Same resolution as last gen.

Yes I am aware of all the usual caveats, that next gen will improve over time etc. It's still sort of surprising to me, personally.

It seems the"knee of the curve" as they say, on graphical diminishing returns, may have been the PS360 gen, in retrospect. I think every prior gen clearly showed huge increases (think about it) but PS360 to PS4/X1 is showing a lot of dimishing returns so far...

Cross gen titles are a bad point of comparison

It's always been like this. There were Xbox games that looked slightly better then 360 games. same for a ps2 to ps3.
ninja gaiden on Xbox. god of war 2 for ps2 and there are a few more. It always starts slow. only usually a few standouts at launch. been this way forever.

I kind of agree but mostly don't. I mean basically games that were the best of their kind last gen are now able to be made with the most minimal of efforts as launch titles this gen and even still there is big improvement.

I think the true 'knee' if you will. Will occur at 1080p / 60 FPS type stuff. It's where the atmospheric effects and the amount of things that can pull you out of a game are removed. I believe in year 4-5 of this generation. We will potentially have hit a point where the PS5, etc will need to be quite different in their approach due to diminishing returns.   Even still,  look at things like the original 'Deep Down' gameplay trailer.   Those 'in-engine' aspects that look fantastic.  That's how I envision future games to look like.

However, there is always room for improvements. This gen, we'll get texture improvements and larger scale things. In future generations, AI / Interaction with environment / Human design / etc will all take bigger roles.

Well I agree that were getting to a point where huge leaps in graphics wont be as noticeable but u have to remember developers have had 7-8 years to get familiar with PS360 and are able to push them to there limits while PS4/One are new consoles. A better comparison would be using launch PS360 games.

Call of Duty 3 vs Ghosts
Resistance vs Killzone ShadowFall
Project Gotham Racing 3 vs Forza 5/DriveClub
Kameo vs Knack

They say this every gen. Seriously I'll look through this site and find an example for you.

If that top pic is the best looking game the ps3 had  then yes, next gen is quite distinguishing. But...we know thats not the best the ps3 had to offer. Don't we?

He was comparing launch titles. -.- 

Yes, we are. It's not just more polygons, but different ways of processing that needs to change.

You have probably seen this before, but it shows well what is going on:

The last one is ten times more accurate!  That is a whole giant whollop of processing power to pull that off.  Just because next gen is @10 times more powerful, doesn't mean it's going to look 10 times better. 

Now we need changes to other things, like ray tracing and light scattering to really make things look more realistic (aka Avatar like graphics.)

Remember back in the PS2/Xbox days.  While the Xbox was like 2.5 more graphicly powerful than the PS2, they looked rather even on most games.

DirectX 12, and most likely the next big upgrade to OpenGL, are going to be a few more years away.  Then it will take developers a while to figure out how to use it.  Things are going to take a nice step this new gen.  But for more realism - which seems like what you might one, that will be at least another gen away.

I agree that there will be a diminishing return, but I'm quite sure we'll be able to tell the difference.