Which generation was a bigger leap in visuals 5th to 6th or 6th to 7th?

[Navane]

I would say the 5th to 6th most definitely. It's like hardly being able to see, and then putting glasses on and seeing everything like it was for the first time. Going from Super Mario 64, to Super Mario Sunshine is like a breath of fresh air graphically.

I agree with archbrix. The 7th gen just seemed to improve what the 6th gen did. While games are now vastly improved on the quality front, the graphics themselves just aren't that big of a leap. I think that in order for the 8th gen to see a big leap, it's gonna have to be in world interactivity. While lighting, polygon count, and texture resolutions have seen a leap, interactivity remains largely the same as last gen. The only problem with that is it's gonna rely more on the developer being able to pull off something like that, then it is going to be a limitation for the consoles. A vast amount of time is going to be needed to invest in something like this. That means the shortcuts developers take developing games now aren't gonna be able to be applied. And on the other hand, too much interactivity could also break the game's world, so there's gonna have to be a balance somewhere along the way.

That's just one aspect of what next-gen needs to do in order to seem like a generational leap. Animation, and AI is gonna be another topic that needs to be addressed. The more advanced we go, the more it's gonna rely on developers and their skills to deliver better content than it will be on the limitations of consoles. It's eventually gonna get to the point where we might see large gaps between developers and what kind of content they bring. I can see that it won't be unlike the movie industry at a certain time, where you know what movie had the budget and what movie didn't. It's not quite as obvious now, as game design is limited by the consoles, but eventually it won't be. Will that be next-gen? No, I don't think it will. I'm predicting that it won't be until the generation after that, where we will see games that start to look like movies.