Can graphics keep evolving? How? For how long?

[HoloDust]

curl-6 said:

It still blows me away that I'm still relatively young and in my lifetime home console graphics have gone from this

Oh, colors and shaded polygons...you lucky, lucky bastard. ;)

This was my first encounter (not counting Battlezone and Star Wars arcades) with 3D graphics (Elite on C64, 1985):

If my memory serves me right, I think that ship being shot at consist of 8 polygons - not polygons really, there is no polygons at that time, just vector based calculations of wire-frames being drawn onto the screen.

Few years later, this was my first hands on with flat-shaded 3D game (though I salivated over SGI Dogfight ever since I saw it on Silicon Graphics workstation in some computer expo few years earlier) - Total Eclipse (Amiga, 1988):

I mean, even in arcades, SEGA's Virtua Racer in 1992 used only flat shaded polygons, and we'd have to wait for 93's Ridge Racer and Daytona USA for textured 3D arcades.

So naturally, when texture mapped 3D games made their splash with UU and W3D in 92, no matter how ugly they look from this perspective, there was a reason why so many minds were blown.