| Shadow1980 said: They're powerful enough. The graphics I've seen in both games I've played and in gameplay videos of other titles look like a generational leap to me. I think the real problem here is short memories. Everybody expects some new revolution or innovation every generation, but honestly practically every generation has done little besides give us "better graphics boxes." The only exception was the fifth generation. The rise of 3D polygon-based graphics necessitated new innovations, new genres, and new ways to play. The switch from 2D to 3D was the single biggest paradigm shift when it came to game design. Many types of games we now play today were simply impossible on a 2D plane. Nothing else comes close to this literal game-changer. Even motion controls, which were perfected on the Wii after 20 years of failed attempts by various companies, had minimal impact; they were simply too limited in capability and scope, and for most games a traditional gamepad was more than sufficient. It's no surprise that motion controls are now on the way out. But the fact that the last several generations have been mostly evolutionary is not a bad thing. Even simple increases in computing power still confer tremendous advantages and improvements to game design, including bigger worlds, better AI, and more sophisticated physics. You can't simply dismiss the improvements made over the last several generation just because they didn't provide the level of innovation we saw with the 2D-to-3D switch in the mid 90s. To do so would be to dismiss many excellent games of greater scale, scope, and intricacy than their fundamentally-the-same predecessors (think GTAV vs. GTAIII), improvements that were only possible on stronger hardware. In most cases, evolutionary is just a good as revolutionary. |
I mostly agree with you. I do n't think anyone is saying that the cumalative effect of the last 2 generations isn't VERY significant. I think the perception is that this generation from the end of the last generation isn't providing significant obvious improvements. Are the worlds bigger? Yes. But, the size of the world can take hours or days to fully realize. Is the AI smarter/better? Probably, but again it would take hours to really see the advancements.
If you compare launch titles of the 360/PS3 to the end of life titles on the PS3/360 you can see great advancements, especially if you compare the endo of life xbox/PS2 games to the end of life 360/PS3 games. Sure, we are only a year into this generation, so we haven't hit the peak of their capabilities. But, the differences in design between the PS4 and XB1 is small. The difference in design from both the PS4/XB1 and PCs is even smaller. The YEARS needed to optimize the PS4/XB1 game creation tools is simply not needed. Fully optimized tools will be available much sooner. Thus the systems shouldn't see such dramatic increases in capabilities.
The biggest gain people will remember from this generation will be things that aren't even hardware related. Streaming, EA Access and things like that. Things that can be done on the PS3/360, but would be much harder and wouldn't help push people to new hardware and the ever closing ecosystems that will really be the future of gaming.
It is near the end of the end....
