We did get a substantial increase in CPU capabilities this generation...
Last generation the CPU's were semi-decent (For their age) at certain types of floating point arithmetic... I.E. The Cell would could beat Jaguar when leveraging iterative refinement or parallel matrix multiplication.

But you throw a quarter precision/half precision/double precision/interger/SIMD task at Jaguar, Jaguar will win.

The best way to describe it overall is that Jaguar and Cell are two cars, Jaguar will sit at 150km/miles per hour for the entire race duration, where-as Cell will sit at 100km/miles per hour, but will "occasionally" accelerate up to 200km/miles per hour, it's capable of higher peak speeds, but it's not able to sustain that as conditions with the road/vehicle change constantly, thus Jaguar is able to get to the finish line first.

The proof is in the pudding though, games that don't leverage GPU accelerated particles, physics and so on... You saw large fundamental increases.

Plus we are able to have multiplayer games with more players. (Battlefield, Fortnite etc'.) and more A.i Characters. (Assassins Creed, Dead Rising.) and more levels of simulation. (Horizon: Zero Dawn minus the water, but there are ants on trees and stuff.)

Dead Rising 3 is an ugly duckling of a game though. But the sheer number of entities on screen is impressive, it is probably the poster child of what a better CPU can do for a game... So next gen is making me moist.

In saying that... Graphics is where developers will always make the most investment, it's super easy to showcase how pretty their game looks on a poster, less so with impressive particle physics.

I'm also not an expert but like DF said, last gen the cpu had a much stronger focus and the gpu was underpowered by comparison. This gen, that seems to be switched around and therefore we didn't see that big a leap in gameplay mechanics like in previous generations. Of course, we did get prettier graphics and bigger levels etc. but a lot of games were held back by the cpu. Developers did try CPU heavy games, off course and that's why AC Unity, Just Cause 3 and DR3 all ran like crap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjRdrVAHCQ

Agreed, I bought the game at launch so I had thoughts on it.

The first impression I had is the game is pixelated and grainy, that's not very next gen. Which is due to the lack of post processing affects and low resolution. Aspects that later improved in Xbox One development.

However, the assets like geometry of the environment, character models and textures along with effects are a vast improvement over last gen. But what really made this stand out as a next gen experience was the amount of zombies walking around. They don't just stand there either like AC Unity (atleast when on foot), they actually come after you. There is also great use of physics when you drive through them or blow them up without significant drops.

I know the Jaguar CPUs are deemed trash by every metric. But I still give them credit for handling experiences like Dead Rising 3 and Just Cause 4 with solid 30 fps performance. In practice it seems 8th gen got a pretty significant CPU upgrade over 7th gen, whatever that's worth.

I disagree with that narrative, for the most part. I think developers hit a wall in game design and weren't interested in taking risks. They were given a pretty significant boost in both GPU and CPU power with 8th gen hardware. They just used it to create similar experiences but larger in scale and better looking.

I think Megaton Rainfall is actually an interesting showcase technically. Its massive in scale, you can travel an open world in great speeds and pretty good physics that can also be janky. The graphics suck but that's a small project, imagine if it had a AAA budget to work with.

The video I posted previously showed DR3 became a solid 30 fps experience after patches.

Just Cause 3 runs bad during action. But you know what runs much better? Just Cause 4. DF said it was better optimized to use Jaguar's cores or whatever. They go into great detail in that analysis video.

AC Unity actually becomes a fairly stably experience on X1X. While Just Cause 3 still runs poor, the optimization is bad.

You are entitled to enjoy any game you like, I personally enjoyed State of Decay 2 which reviewed in the mid 60s. I am just pointing out that a game like Infamous SS was not ground breaking or evolutionally. It was just an open world game that was done many times last generation with better visuals. Again if you strip the paint off Infamous SS it wouldn't be anything impressive underneath. The visuals tend to make Sony and Xbox games, because they tend to focus on story type games that try to be like movies. That makes sense however in saying that, those games aside from the visual upgrades can be done on last gen consoles like the 360 which we saw with Tomb Raider.

Having a better CPU does help however nothing is stopping good developers currently from achieving great A.I, Awesome Physics and a numerous amount of characters on screen etc. Its just that developers are not focusing on these areas anymore and to me they have gotten lazy. If a game like Perfect Dark, built on the N64 can achieve amazing A.I and characters on screen than a 8 core Jaguar CPU can do it with its eyes closed. Lets hope the newer CPUs breed new ideas with the devs and try to make them utilise the CPU power rather than just ignore it for pretty graphics etc. 

Sure Half Life 3 will be better than Half Life 2 if made with the kind of love and investment from Valve again however a game like Half Life 3 wouldn't be a launch title for a brand new console and would be in the oven for quite some time. The difference here would be up to the developers not so much the hardware to achieve more. Like I said before, it takes time before we start seeing some amazing leaps forward on newer hardware and most times at launch we get tech demos and visual upgrades only. But again I don't know what games are coming next gen aside from GodFall and we haven't seen much of that either. I don't normally expect much at launch aside from visual improvements and I don't expect anything revolutionary either. Not in a brand new consoles starting years. That's just me though. 

I have to disagree. SS was groundbreaking for it's time as it simply did things that weren't possible possible on the ps3. It was basically an open world game with graphics that we would normally see in linear games and had crazy particle effects. I agree that gameplay wise, it didn't evolve as much, especially compared to GTA5. But for a launch title it was still an impressive showcase what the ps4 could do. Like I said, it depends on the developer, production budget etc. what they will do with the new hardware.

And yes, usually the big budget games come a bit later as developers usually don't know the finalized specs of the new consoles and big AAA titles take years to develop. But who knows what kind of launch titles the ps5 will have and especially what will come out in the second year. But one thing is for sure, a lot of those games will pull of things that wouldn't be possible if it also had to run on ps4/Xone. I mean look at the games that came out in 2015 that all skipped the 360/ps3: Batman AK, Fallout 4, Witcher 3,  Bloodborne, Battlefront, Dying Light, Rocket League, Until Dawn, Halo 5 etc. Those are some pretty big games and not just tech demos.

It usually doesn't take years before we start to see the good, true next gen stuff.  But if MS plans to support the X1, not just for 1, but 2 years. A ton of these first wave of 1st and 3rd party games will be seriously hold back. On the other hand, if MS is just referring to their own exclusives, I couldn't care less. It just sounds like a bad move on MS's part to not use the few AAA exclusives, they do have, to really showcase the new Xbox's power, that's all. 

I think what we consider ground breaking is different. BOTW is ground breaking to me as it re-invented the wheel with open world games. Infamous SS was really just a graphic upgrade from its predecessor.. which if that's all you want in a game is visuals than I want to recommend you play Ryse Son of Rome, that was the best looking game for a constant 2 years on release and to this day still shines higher than most games especially on the X or PC, as for me, Ryse was shallow, much like every other 1st and 2nd year games on arrival this gen.

Keep in mind just because Xbox is focusing on doing cross play doesn't mean we wont be seeing improvements, I believe that's what a lot of gamers are thinking, however as time goes on with these consoles we continue to get better designed games. Just look at Halo Infinite and compare that with Halo 5, hard to believe those games are on the same platform or another example would be Uncharted 4 compared to TLOU2. Hardware doesn't seem to be limiting these devs from moving forward.

First couple of years I expect tech demos and games pushing visuals only and sacrificing the gameplay to achieve it in the process. Who knows, maybe something will blow me away next year however I am quite picky when it comes to games, I usually like a good story and gameplay to follow along with great visuals. All we can do is wait and see.

If you're ok with a game like Second Son, which you admit that gameplay wise did not break any new ground and was basically the same Infamous but with prettier visuals, why would it bother you that Microsoft will launch some cross gen titles? By the sound of it, you're expecting some games that won't break any new ground in the gameplay or design department but will just have prettier visuals than the previous gen. Sounds exactly like your own description of Infamous SS, which came a few months after launch. Microsoft said the next one to two years, which literally could mean only 2020 titles. Or could mean up to early 2021 titles, like Infamous was an early 2014 title. You mention 2015 titles, those are irrelevant because that implies MS will still be supporting cross gen two years after XSX launches, that's not what they said.

This all ignores the fact that developers can and have made different versions of a game for cross gen support. Even Microsoft themselves did it with Horizon 2. They're doing it right now with Flight Simulator. Developers in the past have made games designed with next gen consoles in mind and then scaled back for weaker hardware. Supporting cross gen does not by default limit what a game can do. This has never been reality, Microsoft doing it doesn't make it reality.

Exactly why do you think MS supporting cross gen means their games can't take advantage of XSX power? You just said all of that regarding Infamous. Gameplay wise it did nothing new, but you think it took good advantage of PS4 power. Why wouldn't Xbox games be able to do the same?

The fact remains that SS was a true next gen game at the time and did things that we hadn't quite seen before. If those things actually made for a better game is besides the point. Some developers just have more talent and better ideas than others and it's up to them to take advantage of the hardware in a meaningful way. I think some people are making a bit unfair comparisons, though. You shouldn't be comparing SS with a GTA5 or BOTW, games that had 100m budgets and were a decade in the making. I mean was Second Son on ps4 a better game than GTA5 on the ps3? Of course not, but would GTA5 have been a lot better if it skipped ps3/360? Would BOTW have been even better if it was designed for more powerful hardware? I'm pretty sure they would have. 

The ps4 launched on November 2013 and early 2015 we were already seeing plenty of games that made the full leap to the next console cycle. So that is within 2 years. And sure, with some genres it probably would be doable to make a different version like they did with Forza Horizon on the 360/X1. But that all depends on what kind of ideas and ambitions the developers have. AC Unity for example could not be ported at all and that's why they simultaneously released AC Rogue for ps3/360. That just proves that not all games can be scaled down without completely messing up core gameplay mechanics, even if those gameplay mechanics sucked. 

I'm no game developer but I'm sure they have plenty of ideas what to do with the extra cpu/gpu and ssd power. But just a wild guess. Halo Infinite would probably have bigger, way more complex levels, more npc's on screen and an overall much bigger scale if it skipped the X1. Now it will just be the same game running in native 4k and 60fps. 

What makes it a "true next gen game"? You just said it didn't do anything special gameplay wise and really only did spectacular stuff in the graphics department. If visuals that aren't possible on last gen hardware are what makes a game "true next gen" then virtually every game will be a true next gen game. Also, the only person I saw comparing SS to GTA V was you.

Yes, PS4 launched in 2013 and yes, in 2015 we saw some great games taking advantage of next gen power. 2015 is two years after PS4 launched. MS is saying, at max, "worst case" scenario, they'll have cross gen games ONE year after launch. So why would there not be amazing XSX games taking full advantage after one year? Why wouldn't there be at launch?

Your Halo comment is making assumptions. You don't have to be a developer to understand basic ideas of how development works, you just have to be a gamer who pays attention. They can easily make Halo Infinite on XSX that has all that stuff you mentioned, AND have a last gen version that has different design and runs at a much lower res. Do people not understand how PC has worked for years? They don't make games with the lowest CPU or GPU in mind. You literally just agreed with my Forza comment about how they took the game designed for next gen Xbone and refit it to work on 360. Yet, for some weird reason, when XSX is involved they're going to go the opposite route. Even though with Flight Sim, they're taking the same approach everyone uses, design for power and scale back for other versions.

I guess I just don't get the blatant double standard. Infamous came like four months after launch and as you admit, did nothing new gameplay wise but had amazing visual effects and that's perfectly ok. But theoretically in your predictions XSX games will just be last gen games with next gen visuals. Sounds like.... the exact same situation to me. Except one is reality (Infamous) one is just a prediction that doesn't line up with logic or history (XSX). I remember when a game like LBP3 came out this gen and was cross gen and had complete parity across the versions and no one here cared and IIRC that was like a year after launch. There was no concern trolling, no talk about the game being held back. It's nonsense.