Andrespetmonkey said: 1.) I think there will be less AAA games around with more devs focusing on smaller, downloadable titles, so we'll have less jaw-dropping photo-realistic visuals. To answer the question in the poll, I think the worst looking games will look like Uncharted 3 at 1080p, and the best will look like Metro: Last light maxed out or better.

1.) Yes, this was my point. There's going to be A LOT more games that don't bother pushing graphics. Though these 'cheap' games will be frequent even at retail. All of these games will definitely be able to run on the Wii U, giving it great 3d party support.

Completely disagree about your last statement. I think that the average next gen game will look like Uncharted 3, if not worse.

VGKing said: I say the leap from PS3 to PS4 will be more like PS1 to PS2 in terms of graphics/power.

you consider that a relatively small leap or large leap?

it depends what you see as big jump or not. if you are talking about the look of faces or draw distance or lighting or whatever. different people see different importance and with that, for some will the jump very big and for some only mehh. for me, lighting is very important. games still don't look very realitsic for me even if they try to because of bad lighting. this will get a nice boost next gen i'm pretty sure about that and some might think "mehh lighting..."

I think we'll see improvement in graphics that are less than what we saw between the last two gens. Mostly I'd bet the enhancements revolve around animations AI environments etc.

Jay520 said: Andrespetmonkey said: 1.) I think there will be less AAA games around with more devs focusing on smaller, downloadable titles, so we'll have less jaw-dropping photo-realistic visuals. To answer the question in the poll, I think the worst looking games will look like Uncharted 3 at 1080p, and the best will look like Metro: Last light maxed out or better. 1.) Yes, this was my point. There's going to be A LOT more games that don't bother pushing graphics. Though these 'cheap' games will be frequent even at retail. All of these games will definitely be able to run on the Wii U, giving it great 3d party support. Completely disagree about your last statement. I think that the average next gen game will look like Uncharted 3, if not worse.

Interesting, what kind of specs are you expecting? A $300 system could achieve Uncharted 3 visuals at launch, anything higher could obviously do better.

This is pretty much assured. Last generation saw the introduction of HD as a standard format, new generation of shaders, multi-core graphics units, tesselation, new real-time lighting tech and the implementation of big textures, allowing higher res on big areas, even outdoors.
We won't have many of these "mini revolutions" in the 8th gen, so the leap will not be anywhere near as vast as that of the last generation.
The difference between the PS2/X-box/GC and the PS360 is staggering on second generation titles and up, there's just no end to the improvements on current consoles over previous ones.

The PC will keep pushing the boundaries for sheer tech while consoles will force developers to optimize, shrink, funnel, compact and generally accomodate great visuals on lesser tech. New threading technology for a new generaion of CPU's will also mean big improvements in AI, which is something we are in dire need of today, especially on consoles.

If we do not see the PS4 and 720 announced for 2013 I believe it is because companies do not want too take as many huge risks with rising costs of development which makes every game a gamble to invest in. I do perceive the jump as the smaller than this era, but at the same time it has to be substantial enough to make people really know this is a new era. A new control scheme just does not seem likely to come out again to cause the temporary craze the wii did so I am going to say it will be small, but very noticeable over the PS3 and 360. Very safe prediction most are making, but when it comes to profit Sony has to be safe and MS seems to play it safe with it's gaming division the most. Nintendo gambled on power and lost with the gamecube and N64 and seems unlikely to do it again. 

Andrespetmonkey said: Jay520 said: Andrespetmonkey said: 1.) I think there will be less AAA games around with more devs focusing on smaller, downloadable titles, so we'll have less jaw-dropping photo-realistic visuals. To answer the question in the poll, I think the worst looking games will look like Uncharted 3 at 1080p, and the best will look like Metro: Last light maxed out or better. 1.) Yes, this was my point. There's going to be A LOT more games that don't bother pushing graphics. Though these 'cheap' games will be frequent even at retail. All of these games will definitely be able to run on the Wii U, giving it great 3d party support. Completely disagree about your last statement. I think that the average next gen game will look like Uncharted 3, if not worse. Interesting, what kind of specs are you expecting? A $300 system could achieve Uncharted 3 visuals at launch, anything higher could obviously do better.

It's not going to be a problem with hardware capabilities. More with developers looking to avoid high costs of such games. Sure, the consoles will be (supposedly) easy to develop for and digital distribution will eliminate manufacturing costs, but I just don't think that'll make it easy enough for the average developer to be able to make a game with visuals a big jump from Uncharted 3. Instead, I see Uncharted 3's graphics being the norm next gen. They may be a bit better but I just don't see it. Too expensive and time-consuming. We'll see how easy development for the PS4/720 truly is though, and I'm willing to bet the majority of developers will settle for games on par with Uncharted 3.

I'm expecting the sims 4 to look like google maps

Considering the standards of PC games today, then I'd say vastly superior. Just look at Crysis 2 with the HD texture pack and DX11 effects or Battlefield 3 and you can see a sample of what future consoles will have. When effects like tessellation become the norm we'll see some incredibly impressive looking games.

As for costs, I believe most of the costs in terms of employee time are associated with the creation of art assets, but in most games these are made in high-res (for cut-scenes for instance) and down-scaled for gameplay. Most PC based devs will have experience in the tech anyway.