Kwaad, stop talking about AI : you obviously don't understand what it is about and the amount of work it is. These AI are very simplistic and won't need any power at all, they just need lots of memory to hold the states. Your "complex part of the equation" is actually pretty simple.
What is hard is the theory behind these algorithms, which are things I learnt about in school 15 years ago, and that were known at least 20 years before I learned them. So please, stop with your stupid AI worship ! No AI you will come up with need lots of power, and could be made to work without problem on a SNES.
The hardest and more powerful AI are those that learn and adapt from their learning. And that would be a AI global to the game to be useful. I bet the AI in Wii Sports, which adapt difficulty to the player's strength, is more advanced than all the things you talk about. And the difficulty in learning AI, is making them "think" right. An AI that can play Go is very difficult to do (still no AI can do that), and no game can come near this level of sophistication, especially in a videogame.
As for your question, the answer is very simple actually. A 'next gen game' is a buzzword, nothing more. It doesn't mean anything at all. It's just marketing nonsense to lure gullible people. 'Next gen" doesn't mean anything either. It should be obvious with consoles.
You have to rally some group of thoughts for 'next gen consoles' to have a meaning, such as taking Wikipedia's meaning. Then, 'next gen games' would be games released for these consoles. Of course, they are current gen by the time the games are released, so it goes back to 'next gen games' being nonsense, so just a buzzword.
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