When a game is announced as cross-generation between PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360, it’s easy to understand why many that moved to the current generation of consoles feel a measure of their excitement ebb away. Cross-generation games tend to penalize the current generation platforms rather heavily in order to accommodate the restriction of the old ones.

Below you can see an extensive gallery with 22 screenshots of the beta taken on PS4 and PS3 (PS4 on top and PS3 below it in each pairing) in order to easily see the difference between the two platforms. Of course you should click on each screenshots to see them at their full resolution.

With each screenshots we attempted to reproduce the angle and position as close as possible, and the lighting condition as well. Of course there’s a degree of variation, but it’s pretty minimal.

The difference is extremely noticeable. Maybe even more noticeable than many would expect, and not because the PS3 version looks terrible. It’s pretty much par per course for a PS3 game showing levels of this magnitude. Resolution is a fairly obvious distinguishing element, but it’s far from being the only difference, and it’s not even the most relevant change.

3D models have a quite evidently higher polygon count on PS4 (it’s very noticeable on curved objects, for instance the ropes on the wall in the picture showcasing Lord Shaxx. Textures are also at least twice (if not more) the resolution on Sony’s new console compared to the old-gen version.

Lighting (including the number and complexity of the light sources), reflections, translucent surfaces, shadows, foliage, normal maps, tassellation and basically everything that contributes to determine the game’s visual fidelity are simply on a different order on magnitude on the two consoles.

There’s only one element in which the PS4 version fails quite badly to deliver, and that’s anti-aliasing, with very visible jagged lines especially on fences and railings. The effect is a bit distracting, but that’s pretty much the only area where the game hasn’t been improved much compared to PS3.

Ultimately Destiny is the perfect example on how cross-generation games should be made without sacrificing new-gen consoles excessively. It’s pretty much a given that development exclusively on PS4 and Xbox One would have yielded better results, but in this case we can’t say that the old-gen penalized its newer counterparts too much.

go to link for higher res screens http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/07/18/destiny-ps4-vs-ps3-beta-screenshot-comparison-shows-how-a-cross-gen-game-should-be-made/

Average joe is happy with the ps3 visuals.. no reason to upgrade to the new gen.

Honestly the difference is massive in motion, I have both. Many, many of the effects are missing that are in the PS4 version.

The PS4 ones obviously look better, but the PS3 owners arent missing out on anything. Thats a good thing though.

Ps4 is a bit sharper but thats it

resolution difference is obviously big. ps4 also has much better draw distance.

..still, the ps3 version isn't far off. kind of makes me disappointed in the ps4 version since it is obviously being held back by destiny's cross gen status.

Hmm, I am surprised the PS3 version looks that blurry. Happens all the time since a long time - I didn't see last gen games that blurry. How did they take the screenshots?
Overall it looks good on both systems. PS4 looks like PC ported looked last gen cross-system games. Higher res, better textures but nothing groundbreaking.

Massive difference, enlarge the screens. The PS3 version looks incredibly blurry.

Another cross-gen title that was made for 7th-gen and then Full-HD port to 8th-gen...

It's pretty easy to see how the PS3/360 versions are holding the PS4/X1 versions back :/ The geometry is often almost identical (but with much stronger LOD culling on the PS3). It's understandable though. If you want to make a game easily scale between gens then you have to make it easily down/up-gradable. Lower res textures, turning effects off, toning down foliage, lower IQ etc are the easiest options.

Dat PS3 image quality though.