They're not mutually exclusive, of course. Some of the best games ever made achieved both: Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Metroid, SoulCalibur, Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4. The problem, I think, is that some folks see flashy graphics and think, "oh that studio tried." The same folks see a low-res game and think, "such lazy developers, not worth my time." That's not how it works. In fact sometimes high-powered graphics are used to compensate, to help sell games that are mechanically poor.

Another thing that drives me up the wall is the hypocrisy that surrounds this whole subject. PS2 owners were fine with inferior-looking third-party games. They didn't migrate en masse to Xbox 360 when multiplats performed better there. Now suddenly they turn their noses up at 900p?

Nintendo fans since 2006 have argued gameplay over graphics. Then Mario Kart 8 arrives and they're posting .gifs and drooling over textures and water effects.

visuals are an integral part of a game since you actually have to be able to see what you are doing to play

and why can't a game have both great visuals and great gameplay?

Since technology improved and some people wanted to make out you can't have both because their company of choice started falling behind.

The reality.

Prefer both.

Top comment.

Since we were born with eyes and saw all the beautiful women...so graphics first..

Visuals has been a important part of gaming however this generation I'm hearing more and more the same thing. "I am not buying a Switch because the graphics" Honestly iv been gaming since the early 90s when all we had was a NES, Master System and Atari. The kids that complain today wouldn't know how to survive without electricity or a Smartphone. I was called a graphic whore by my console only friend because I was upgrading my PC into a 4k monster.. I am also buying the Switch so work that out.
Too many keyboard Warriors on the internet, best way to enjoy your gaming is staying off the net and websites that allow fanboyism. All you hear is hatred and jealously and unless it suits there needs its like talking to a wall.

The graphics versus gameplay argument is a red herring, it's used by, mostly, Nintendo gamer's when faced with criticism over Nintendo-based titles looking not so great as a result of Nintendo's ongoing trend to release consoles at the lower end of the performance scale, sometimes significantly so, the whole "yeah but gameplay is more important", it's then bait and switched on the odd occasion where something on Nintendo is released with actually half decent graphics, and suddenly their console of choice having "better graphics" suddenly matters more.

Take for example the WiiU version of need for speed, it was ever so slightly better than the xbox 360 and PS3 versions, Nintendo fans took this as gospel truth to mean that not only did that particular title look better, but that it was also proof that the WiiU was a more powerful console.

When the actual truth is, you can and do get both great gameplay and great graphics in many games, great graphics do an awesome job of boosting immersion and by extension, making the gameplay more enjoyable, the notion that most games these days focus more on graphics than they do on gameplay while potentially true in a handful of cases, is false for the rest of the industry.

People just want to build things that are as nice to look at as they are to play, when a console doesn't have the power to do that, you ultimately find people playing the gameplay > graphics card, because in truth, what options do they have?

So the answer to your thread topic is simply: Never

Nobody builds something pretty and intentionally butchers gameplay, hell nobody sets out to make a game that isn't fun to play at all, some just end up good, and some just end up bad, regardless of how good or bad the graphics are.

It's happening a bit too often lately, I agree with that but especially 60FPS can improve the gameplay by a lot.

Too much truth here.