The leap from SD to 720p 30fps was a very big jump visually but required about double the processing power, from SD to 1080p 60fps is about an order of magnitude leap. While all three consoles of the next gen will occasionallly reach that, it will be a struggle depending on the other processing demands of the game.

The leap then to 4k gaming is almost another order of magnitude. Considering that high end graphics cards do this by throwing a crap ton of processing power at the problem (250+W of power). Consoles should not expect this any time soon. Console processors are designed to be lower power consumption devices, by their very nature. Processor speeds now improving by at most 10% per generation and power consumption dropping by about a quarter to a third at best each time the processors shrink to smaller and smaller half pitch differences. But the current processes at 22-32 nm face diminishing returns as they drop to 14 and then 10 then 7 then 5 will face diminishing returns unlike the huge jumps we had from 286 to 386 to 486 processors for instance.

So you either have massive multiprocessor huge power consumption devices or incremental improvements... Consoles are more closely following the incremental route, hence why 7 years brought us from mostly 720p to mostly 1080p. The next great leap will be slower in console format, power guzzling overclocked PCs with massive GPUs like the titan... well, they are taking the other approach.

Plus there is a limit to what the eye can differentiate.... Especially in color depth and frame rate.
http://www.cameratechnica.com/2011/11/21/what-is-the-highest-frame-rate-the-human-eye-can-perceive/
http://www.swift.ac.uk/about/files/vision.pdf

By the way the 5 nm half pitch distance is estimated to arrive in 2019 and steps beyond that well they are very hard to achieve. The end of the line with current tech is about 15-20 years (2 console gens?) After which we have nothing planned... yet. So yes diminishing returns are a certainty.

The throw more cores at it solution is also a dead end (this is especially true for the cloud which has network latency issues)...
http://memorabble.net/memos/1G

Same launch window time frame, very different results.

Comparing a first year PS4 game with a PS3 game developed during the same year as opposed to a first year PS3 game and saying there's little difference between the results is akin to suggesting that PS4 games developed 5-7 years into the product cycle won't be significantly improved, which everyone on here should acknowledge is well beyond highly unlikely.

Eh Google has issues doing searches by date, but here is a different forum talking about diminishing returns back then. Pretty amusing reads.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=129088

I'll quote some people for fun:

"I'm a bitt dissapointed with the graphics of the 360 and PS3. They look a bit more polished, but other then that they seemed almost the same. Only Ghost Recon 3 (I saw a video clip online) seemed like an improvment at all"

"This next-gen is more about new experiences than super graphics"

"Sure the gfx might not be as good as everyone hoped, but Doom III proved that great graphics are worthless if the gameplay sucks"

"The 360 was a huge disappointment in terms of graphics"

"Why do I get the feeling that people will be saying the same exact thing even when we hit the PlayStation 8"

"well when you think about it, did early ps2 games look any better than late ps1 games? i'm sure the graphics are going to be a lot better after awhile"

But the same can be said of the next gen exclusives so far  to some extent.

They look good, but not mind blowing or like a different world to PS360.

Whereas 360 launch had PGR3 which blew my mind and was DEFINITELY next gen.

But then again I dont have PS4/X1 yet, so maybe in person some game will impress me.

I would say this wasn't a problem at all in Gens 1 to 6.  It was easily recognizable to the casual observer that there was a big difference between those machines.  But we really are starting to see diminishing returns here in 7 and 8.  There is only so realistic you can get before you are pretty much there.

Zappykins' post shows that very well.

lol diminishing returns won't be a problem until video games can rival 2009 CGI like Avatar in real-time, we're nowhere near there yet. The PS5 might come close but it's only by the time the PS6 launches, 20+ years from now, when diminishing returns means that games won't get much or any better looking. Until then there's loads of huge improvements to be made to lighting, character models, animation etc.

Besides, PS4/X1 launch exclusvies already completely blow PS3/360 launch exclusives away and this is just the start, they will get better and better looking.

Not only are these cross platform (built to look good on both consoles) but they're cross-GEN too. These are games using the same engines they've built for LAST gen. When you see first party exclusive games using next-gen engines, you'll see the difference

a.creed and c.o.d i wasnt impressed by,but i thought bf4 sp looked quite sexy on the oneps4,and for exclusives,killzone is a great start,... also ryse/deep down/order1866 take a steaming dump on last gen as well from a graphics point of view

I have to agree with the OP. Obviously, what constitutes as "better visually" is subjective, and we also have different opinions about how much visual fecundity adds to our enjoyment of a game.

But it is obvious that there is some diminishing returns at play here. A game running at 1080 requires twice as much processing power as one running at 720, but can you honestly claim it looks twice as good on a normal TV? As for lighting and particle effects - I really couldn't care less whether I can see the reflection of my opponents back in that light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

For me, this generation is all about unique gaming experiences. The Wii U has the gamepad, XB has the Kinect, but the PS4 is sticking with the traditional controller. For me, that means the PS4 is the least likely to add anything to what we've already had for the last 20 years.

Others disagree, and that is fine, but my wallet is not aching for Sony at the moment, even though they have the most powerful console of the three.

Not really.

It's almost impossible to search the internet for forums from before PS2, but people still said and thought the same way. Plus saying graphics have little left to improve is just silly. I know Avatar is used way too much in these threads, but please point out which game looks even remotely close to this pic:

On top of this you need to understand Avatar itself is far from perfection. CGI and even next gen graphics will look better than you can currently imagine.

As far as Zappykins post, I don't believe in diminishing returns with graphics. Do you have diminishing returns with polycounts, textures, resolution, etc. ? Of course, but graphics are the result of tons of different techniques being combined. If you took a game from the 64 and made an HD version with no new techniques, just much larger numbers for resolution, polygon, texture size, etc., it would still look worse than modern games. Golden Eye with 3 trillion polygons per character and super duper high res textures wouldn't look that amazing compared to Halo 4 even though it technically is leaps and bounds better, going by the numbers. It's why CGI with all the time in the world to render a single frame keeps looking better and better too. Why haven't they reached the point of diminishing returns?

Just ignore this rant if it doesn't make sense or is phrased poorly. I meant to retire a few hours ago but the Nintendo financial report kept me up.