Are devs making graphics way too much of a priority?

[Biggerboat]

KBG29 said:
It is just the first year of this generation. At the moment devs are just starting to get to grips with the systems and how to make them sing. Every generation developers have huge inital development costs because they have to learn to get a lot out of the systems fast. Buy the third and fourth generation games Devs can start making better looking, longer games for half of what they spent on the inital releases. Without a doubt the gameing community has got to have the worst combined memory of any on the planet. This same thing has been happening for 6 generations already and yet people stil don't get it.

So my awsner to the question is No. Developers and Publishers are doing exactally what they need to do at the moment. Dump a large amount of money into getting a good foundation for this generation. Insomniac has shown a great stratagy thus far, doing just that. After you have a great engine to build on every game after that will cost less, come together faster, and continue to look better as new tricks are slowly introduced to the programming community.

As far as graphics killing gameing once we hit photo realism, that is pure BS. Once we hit photorealism is when the games truly begin. Devs can then focus completly on content in the game, and that is the best thing that can happen. Polyphony Digital is a great example of this. They have hit near Photorealism on GT5 and now it is all about content. GT5 is going to change the way people think about games, as it will stretch beyond anything we have ever seen before. In conclusion to that no Photorealism is not the death of game, it is the birth.

Lastly I want to talk about this continuos evelution in control. Evelutionary controls can not be expected from every game that comes out. To expect that is unrealist and unprofessional. We only really need this to happen when we hit a point that the way we are used to playing is becoming outdated. By that I mean that the gameplay is behind the graphics, like in games such as The getaway and GTA. When the gameplay looks and feels stif while the enviornment you are in is alive and flowing then their is a problem. However when thins are perfect like Mario, Jak, Halo, GT then their is no need to change them. Take sports for example, people ahve been playing sports for 100's of years and we have not had to change the way they are played. So the point here is if somthing works nearly perfect their is no reason to inovate on it, because as long as their is a goal or compatition it will never get boring.

I accept that devs need to spend more at the beginning of a gen but 20, 30, 50 million??? I'm thinking that that kind of money is unique to this generation and even accepting these budgets why not invest in something that actually impacts gameplay like AI that actually lives up to the hype or engines that do something significantly different than just making things look more presentable.

Why do we need to wait til graphics hit a plateau before concentrating on content? Why not make room for the good stuff now? To some extent I think that just improving visuals comes down to laziness and it depresses me to think that devs will only focus else where when they have no other choice. Also what the hell is going to be so revolutionary about GT5?

GT & Halo having perfect controls(I haven't played Jak)? GT, yes, if you use a steering wheel as it pretty much is the same as the real thing. Halo, well both the wiimote and m+k provide better FPS controls so I'd say there's plenty of room for improvement. Hell, Mario probably doesn't have perfect controls but I'll tell you what they're refreshing and you can't say that about too many games these days.