Yeap but I think the better comparison is only use the System RAM and VRAM... 36MB for PS2.

Biggest jump was from 16 bit to 3D visually speaking.

The PS4 games look great, and I'm sure we'll see some very nifty stuff in the next few years.

But I can't help but view this as a Pyrrhic victory, for Sony and for the industry. I just think all this focus on horsepower is a mistake.

And I know many developers and publishes want all these things -- enhanced memory and GPU performance to name a couple -- but if they think that more RAM and faster applications will unlock the secret to video game greatness they're wrong.

Just look at the launch games for PS3... they are close or only a little better than GoW2, Shadown of Colossus or Vangrant Story... Killzone launch title for PS4 is way better than GoW:A for example.

What I'm excited for is the "no compromises" part. Read any Digital Foundry article and you'll eventually come across something like, "it's clear that the developers decided to go with X at the expense of dropping Y." And that's just in the graphical evaluation. There is no telling how many levels had to be scaled back, how many enemies and NPCs had to be subtracted, or how much an AI had to be truncated just so they could fit everything in with passable performance.

It's going to be a big leap. I have no doubt of that. It just might not be a leap that you'll be blown away by when you compare two still shots side-by-side, but rather one that becomes apparent when you play a next gen game.

 I think the biggest leap, however, will be with how quickly games load and how responsive gaming systems are. We're used to waiting a long time from system up to game start but early indications are that this will change for the better. I hope so, and think that this could be a huge incentive for people to jump to next gen.

Definitely and no doubt. Most impressive leap ever. Look at Star Fox on Snes which was only possible with an add-on-chip and look at what psx/n64/Saturn did. 

I'm not seeing it. Hell the jump from PS2 to Xbox was even bigger. Killzone SF, gameplay looks just like current gen games, its just that set piece even at the end that looked impressive.

16-bit to 32/64-bit is still the biggest IMO, with SD-HD coming in close 2nd. So far the next gen is shaping up to be prettier and shinier versions of games we already have, similar to the initial jump from 8 to 16-bit in the late 80s.

hasn't every RAM increase in PS consoles been 16x?

They still jumped quite a bit.  But the ps4's is a lot more impressive and that it's GDDR5.