Eurogamer

We've reached a point where PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 don't have much "raw horsepower" left to give, Modern Warfare 3 developer Sledgehammer Games has said.

"We are definitely in the later phases of the development cycle now," studio co-founder Michael Condrey told IndustryGamers. "Teams have had a lot of time on this generation to capitalise on the hardware strengths.

"For good teams, the raw horsepower has been pushed towards its peak performance, and great teams are looking for hundredths, and more often thousandths of a second of CPU and GPU optimisations to push the consoles harder."

Gamers shouldn't, therefore, expect the technical leaps and bounds of the generation's infancy, said Condrey - but rather refinements.

"Graphic improvements continue to push the visuals to new bars every year and next year should be no different," he went on to say. "I don't expect the leap forward to be as large as the early console years, but the cycle isn't over yet either.

"New innovative approaches will move the best in class titles forward again next year. By how much, will depend on how well the developers respond to tackling the most challenging optimisations.

IndustryGamers also talked to Square Enix technology boffin Julien Merceron and Team Ninja leader Yosuke Hayashi.

Hayashi agreed that "any further dramatic evolution in current consoles that could be plainly understood by the general gamer would be fairly difficult to achieve".

Merceron said "obviously current consoles' power is limiting", but still sees room for "major improvements" on PS3. When those are made the PS3 may appear "slightly ahead of Xbox 360 in terms of graphics".

The "raw horsepower" potential of the machines may have been reached, then, but the potential for new experiences hasn't.

"I really enjoy this late cycle period of development on the current generation," said Condrey.

"Developers spend less time having to figure out the 'how', giving more time to iterate on the 'what'."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-04-sledgehammer-ps3-360-raw-horsepower-nearly-exhausted

considering mw3 is part of the low tier games when it comes to graphics i have to say
LOL

What is BF3 then? I mean sure after BF3 don't expect graphical leaps but i don't think MW3 developers can really talk considering they haven't changed the graphics at all for the call of duty series. ( even though i don't care about graphics they should be improved upon to keep up with the competition)

I don't think they can, it is integral for them to be running MW3 at 60 FPS without any frame rate dips whatsoever. A lot of their hardware processing power is required to achieve this which allows COD to have the smooth run and gun arcadey gameplay like no other. Whatever is left after that is dedicated towards graphics, etc.

Believe me, I play quite a lot of military shooters, when you play a game like Battlefield or Homefront which run at 30 FPS after playing COD at 60 FPS, you do feel the difference. The character movements do feel as though they lag behind and COD is much more fast paced.

That said I remember there having been a BF3 interview where the developers of that game said the opposite, that they run 30 FPS so that they can dedicate more processing power for the graphics and other functions. I think its pretty safe to say that with the current hardware on consoles, its just not possible to run 60 FPS with BF3 level graphics, you have to make a sacrifice somewhere. But I will give props to Dice for getting their PC versions to run at 60 FPS and 1080p. I am fairly sure that will be the norm next gen for consoles though.

yea what they said

im sorry but these comments are sad the last modern warfare had amazing graphics and was praised for that and an improved version of their game suddenly has low tier graphics?? i can bet anyone that cod on consoles will look better then battlefield 3 on consoles

CoD games have a lot of room to further optimize and polish for both consoles. Therefore, despite being 60fps, they can still push for more if they really wanted too or if they took the time. Yeah, it's never going to happen so disregard this dude.

You can bet they both look terrible on consoles.

i don't know where anybody get's this info from! on my 50 inch cod looks simply amazing not uncharted amazing but still amazing, i just hate how people are always judging graphics when our consoles cant produce much. to me cod and uncharted are the 2 best looking games right now i have played

Have you played The Witcher 2? That looks way better on a 50 inch LED.