Ok, did I see this right? Individuals are posting pictures of CRYSIS, a game that came out like 5+ years ago, to speak about what consoles are missing today? How about showing some future stuff?

To answer your question it isn't so much the static environments that will probably see the most improvement. What is most likely to be addressed is their static nature. Environments in most games react unnaturally to the actions of the players, or non player characters in the worlds. It actually severely limits the players as far as nuance is concerned. It all may look good, but it all lacks a great deal of substance.

When you move through foliage your passage should alter the landscape, and you should see the foliage interfere with your passage. Right now most foliage in games is not interactive. The same holds true for water. Sure you will get a ripple effect when you run across a river in a game, but in reality the faster you run the more spray you should kick up. After a rain storm in a game with dynamic weather you should see a glossy sheen on plants, and dirt should change colors. During the storm the trees should be whipping about in different directions, and the tops should be moving faster, and sometimes in different directions then lower parts of the tree.

Basically there are a lot of little ways the worlds you inhabit should be responding to your actions, but they haven't up to this point. More power means more resources that could be moved out of creating detailed objects, and put into detailed objects that are changeable based upon what you do, and that will dramatically impact game play.

For the sake of a example in most modern shooters you can get away with running across a river at full speed. The water hardly reacts to your passage. In a future shooter you would be supremely daft to do something like that, because firstly you would create a hell of a lot of noise. Secondly the spray you would kick up by running might just blind you. All that water flying in front of you might be bad enough, but if those droplets catch the sun. You might as well be looking into the sun itself. You might not be able to target the guys on the other side of the river, but that doesn't mean they can't target you.

Instead of running full speed across that river. You might first need to find somewhere more shallow, or you might have to crawl through that river, or you might have to throw a grenade to distract the guys on the other side away from where you plan to cross. More responsive environments will create more problems to solve. Especially when once you get to the other side. You have to worry about concealing your path through the foliage on the other side, because you don't want the other team to know that you are now on their side of the river.

Cosmetically there are a few things to optimize. Resolution, of course, but to me this is not an urgent one - stable framerate is much more important to me. Next thing is better textures. Devs made a lot happen this gen to "fake" good textures and make games look awesome while the consoles where somewhat limited but they will look much better than now.
What I hope for are a lot more polygons for models as I hate to see blocky ones. But to me more open games are possible. Think of the broader view and details you get when you compare GTA:SA and GTA4 - next gen will hopefully have the same huge leap. A combination of all, meaning better overall graphics, better models, better textures, wider view. Skyrim actually is a big game in itself but this means "hard" size. It is more a question of "what is rendered to my screen" and how much detail it has, not how big the world is that devs put on the optical disc.

No I simply saying that the upgrade in RAM with the new Consoles is whats really needed. And the amount of RAM in current consoles are what's really holding them back. 

Graphics in current consoles are fine imo. Sure going 60 FPS 1080p is nice. But when you look at a game like DC Universe, play it on the PS3, then on the PC you will see that the PS3 version is lacking. PS Home suffers some of the same problems as PS3 DCU. When you get around groups of people and things are happening on-screen, the game poops lol

I guess what I am saying is that Consoles and PC will be on a level playing field again. Not in terms of graphics (high end PC's will still have better graphics) but in terms of gameplay

Can I ask you what would be gained with current controller technology, to try to make it be more realistic?  Why would gameplay be any better?

And if you want to ponder than for a minute, can I ask you to take a look at the game "Amputea" where you are supposed to make a robot arm to make some tea.

Does a game become more fun the more said "realistic" it is?  Would controlling a real car with a controller pad be actually fun?

By thr way, I spoke to graphics here to, not physics.  What you talk about here is mostly physics.

Resolution, proper shadows, AF, high-res textures, framerate, AA, HDR, HDAO, GI.

The problem that I have with games that try to be super realistic as possible is that they look boring. Sure it looks very impressive but the subject is boring and I just can not get excited with the visuals unless the subject is interesting.

AI

/thread

Why do people bring up AI. It's a coding skill and therefore financial problem and not lack of hardware power.