| joshin69 said: Graphically games in this gen will improve no end. When you compare the looks of PS2 games in its first couple of years and the games coming out now its like looking at two different gen systems. The same will happen with the PS3 for sure, whether MS give the 360 time to reach that sort of maturity i don't know but I'm guessing that the next xbox (what ever they wish to call it) is already being planned. The talk I've heard suggests that the next Xbox maybe their last in the world of consoles but maybe that has more to do with the fact that the future of the home PC will end up under the TV than money lost in this console battle. |
A lot of people tend not to understand the reasons why Playstation and PS2 games improved so much ...
Before the Playstation was released the vast majority of videogame developers were focused on producing 2D games involving sprites, and very few had any experience with 3D rendering. For the most part the algorithms and datastructures that are used to efficiently produce 3D graphics in real-time were either unknown or (at least) not well known and it took several years before developers had the understanding and experience to take advantage of the hardware.
The PS2 improvement is based (primarily) on the increase in quality and availability of middleware and tools. When the PS2 was initially released its tools were awful and there were few middleware companies that really produced high quality solutions. Within a couple of years almost all developers were taking advantage of tools that were developed by experts to take full advantage of the PS2.
The PS3 and XBox 360 started off with the best engine and tool developers in the world focusing on them, attempting to get maximum performance out of these systems, and (by now) they have had over 3 years (and possibly hundreds of man years) to get the most performance out of both systesms. Although further effort will produce improved results it will be nothing like what happened in previous generations.
