Examiner

With the Xbox 360 now in the sixth year of its life-cycle and no successor console in sight, developers inevitably get asked the question of how much more they can get out of the console. Epic's Cliff Bleszinksi recently faced that question as part of the Gears of War 3 launch along with being asked if he knew anything about the next-generation of consoles.

"I think if we bring out any more products on the 360 depending on life cycle, we’ll be able to squeeze more water from that stone," Bleszinski told The Telegraph when asked if Epic Games felt restricted by the Xbox 360. 

"That said, I still think there is a huge amount of room for improvement in graphics," he continued. "We want to get to Avatar-quality and real time and beyond. I think we can absolutey get there, hopefully in the next generation if everybody ponies up and does good hardware."

Wait, what was that about the next generation of console hardware? Could Bleszinski and Epic Games actually know something?

http://www.examiner.com/console-gaming-in-national/epic-says-it-can-squeeze-more-from-xbox-360-knows-when-next-gen-is-coming

why are people so looking forward to new consoles? if you are that interested in graphical improvements, then get a freaking PC.

Well , get a PC ?

I'm with Eurogamer: "Elsewhere, however, there's evidence that we are reaching the limits of the hardware, such as those moments when Fenix is arbitrarily required to chainsaw through wood - which result in some horrible clipping as his tree-trunk arms clumsily disappear through it. At times pre-rendered cut-scenes kick in, and slightly dodgy compression sees to it that they lack the razor sharpness of their real-time counterparts."(Gears 3 review).

Especially after Bleszinsky's unnecessary outcry.

Getting a PC only has minimum benefits these days, considering most mainstream games are built for consoles and are therefore limited by consoles. The only improvements i see in PC versions is higher resolutions, better textures, lighting etc. And thats only if effort has been put in the pc version at all. Im pretty sure PC versions of games do not have better AI, animations, and things like that.

The next generation of consoles will se developers have more resources to use, therefore core elements to the gameplay will be affected like animation, AI, level structuresetc.

So i think StevenKreg is well justified in looking forward to next gen consoles.

Even battlefield 3, whose lead platform is pc, will stil somehow be limited by consoles. The fact that there must be a console version at all is the limiting factor. That said battlefield 3 is atleast taking graphics, lighting, and even animation to a new level on the PC version :) however i stil feel core gameplay elements is limited by consoles, no matter what any developer says.

Didn't even post anything on topic -_-

I think developers will always be able to get more from the current consoles, always. Whether these gains and improvements is significant though...? I don't think so. I think we've reached that limitation on all currently available consoles.

I'm with DigialFoundry

"The smart money says we're nine months away from the reveal of brand-new Xbox hardware, that major advances in visual technology are being held back by the hardware limitations of six-year-old architecture. Gears of War 3 begs to differ. Developed in parallel with the hugely popular Unreal Engine 3 technology, the game looks absolutely remarkable: put it side-by-side with the last game, or even up against Epic's own Bulletstorm, and it's clear that the current gen is still capable of some genuine surprises"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-gears-of-war-3

Consoles and PCs don't get the same games.