Does anyone remember the good old days when GAMEPLAY ruled games?  remember when people cared more about controls and level design and challenge and innovation rather than focussing on processing speed and framerate and bump mapping and shading?  Graphics are just the presentation, and yet so many developers (and an even higher percentage of gamers) care more about that than the core of the game.  It kinda sickens me becuase I'm finding more and more games are entirely unrefined when it comes to the basics, even when they look gorgeous.  

This discussion is a testament to this paradigm shift in gaming:  The entire thread has been dedicated to laughing at Nintendo's attempt to 'keep up' with modern gaming becuause, apparently, a console can't be taken seriously if it doesn't support HD.  As I mentioned before, This is simply not the case, and the Wii proves that most people don't give a shit about graphics, only the 'core' gamers do, even though they're the people who should know better.  

Also, I'm curious, how do I make my own thread on here?  I keep trying but cant find a 'make new thread' button anywhere. 

I've been on that for a while.

Also, go to a main subject page, and right  above the thread list will be the "New Thread" button.

do you? I've been a web developer since I was 7, and game development is very similar to web development in many ways. In both fields you; need to know what your making for the client; know how to program it; know how to create visuals; know how to put it all together; test functionality and compatibility with platforms; fix bugs and retest; release product; fix bugs that arise post-release.

Programming is done by code called C , OpenGL, and several others.

Graphics in general are skin textures, wall textures, 3D objects, and random other things that have been developed for years and created using Photoshop, Maya, and several others. Yes increase in power allows for better looking graphics because you can create larger objects with more depth to internal structure. A Xbox/PC game back in the day should have been harder to create than now due to less functional tools to create certain textures, but with Photoshop CS5, newer 3D modeliong tools, and such it should be a lot easier since there are more advanced tools that allow for better looking things in the same amount of time. 

Now things like fire, smoke, ragdoll animation, lighting, and other things come under programming, more specifically physics programming which takes animation or textures created by the graphics team and coded to work in a game. While code has advanced to be more complex, once learned at the beginning of a generation it becomes easier and less time consuming.

The one thing that majorly affects costs overall is understanding. If you have a programming team that are still learning a platform costs will rise as they discover how to actually make things function.