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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The inflection point for diminishing returns appears to be the PS3/360 generation

Captain_Tom on 28 February 2014
fallen said:

I never believed in diminishing returns, but then next gen came out and I'm just not seeing a huge leap. Take Killzone Shadowfall. It didn't garner near the massive graphics hype of the original Killzone on PS3. Why? Because it looks like just something we'd already seen on PC, or not really THAT much better than a good Xbox 360 shooter like Halo 4, or hell even Crysis 3 on 360.

Now, I know that next gen will produce better things once engines are built from the ground up for them. But to my shock and surprise, next gen games so far look like really good PS3/360 games, not another world.

You couldn't say that for any prior gen. every gen was a HUGGGGEEE leap on the one before. Ps3/360 was a HUGE leap over Ps2. PS2 was a HUGE leap over PS1. And all the way back.

So yep, it seems, unless the future changes my mind, that the PS3/360 gen was the last low hanging fruit, where things looked just massively better at a glance.

 

You meant the Killzone that came out in 2009?  That's 3 years after the PS3 launched.  Killzone Shadowfall looks insanily better than anything on PS3.  Do you own one?  Or are you another person watching youtube?



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BenVTrigger on 28 February 2014

We are still a long way from hitting max. Remember developers are just switching over to new engines now that they have higher resources in consoles. You will see substantial gains in the next few years. Hell "last gen" games maxed on PC look MASSIVELY better than 360 and PS3 and thats not even taking into effect what PC's will be capable of once these new engines come out.

In other words there are still massive gains in graphics remaining and once you go 4k its incredibly difficult to go back. We won't be hitting the wall for graphics for likely another 20 years.



Troll_Whisperer on 28 February 2014

Remember all the talk of Xbox 1.5 and how gen 7 was a small leap from gen 6? It looks silly now:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46919

History repeats itself.



No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.

AnthonyW86 on 28 February 2014

Just wait untill engines Unreal Engine 4 come out.



SvennoJ on 28 February 2014
zarx said:
Diminishing returns is very real, it is also a gradual effect. Luckily processing power increases exponentially not linearly so we are good for a fare few years yet. Once you can't easily distinguish between real-time and current pre-rendered visuals then we will have hit the wall. Give devs 2-3 years to update their engines and production pipelines before you judge. What you have seen so far is mostly old techniques at a higher fidelity with a few gimmicks on top. When games are built from the ground up from art direction to tech to production pipeline to optimization we will see much better results. So far we have seen last gen art tech and production with next gen polish, as devs didn't have modern hardware when they started development 2-4 years ago.

Except devs don't really give us that kind of eye candy anymore. The witcher 2 cinematic intro is an exception nowadays. First hollywood will start to slow down in visual advances. For now they're still taking big leaps. Let's see how close we'll get to Avatar this gen, while keeping in mind that it's hard to make a real comparison to cinema. Cinema can use old rendering techniques and simply throw millions of polygons and objects at you to impress the audience. Take the lego movie for example. Not really difficult to recreate the look in a game, the vast quantity of objects is the problem.



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CatStevensCH on 28 February 2014

In terms of graphics, I agree with the OP. There is not much you can do to improve games visually. Sure you can increase the resolution, use sharper/realistic textures, and add more details and visual effects. But do they add a lot in terms of "wow" factor? And are they worth the dev time and additional cost? I don't think so. The recent direct comparisons of PS3/360/PS4/XOne games seems to confirm this.

I sincerely hope that this generation will see a break in development ressources with more energy spent in creating bigger worlds, more realistic and dynamic IAs and in general more rich gameplay and game modes.



prayformojo on 28 February 2014
brendude13 said:
Disagree.

As people have already pointed out, launch titles are always a minimal jump over the latest games from the previous generation. If Killzone Shadowfall is what a launch title looks like, then I can't wait to see what the PS4's equivalent to Metal Gear Solid 3 or God of War 2 looks like.


I you call Soul Caliber 2 on DC to Syphon Filter 2 on PS1 a "minimal jump". That's insane. The OP is right.



curl-6 on 28 February 2014

Agreed.

Diminishing returns is kicking in hard with the 8th gen.



Cobretti2 on 28 February 2014

give them more time to get new engines out.

I am more concerned about the HDD space with mandatory installs this gen. I am itching to get a PS4 but if all games are 20-50gb installs well you run out of space and no chance in hell I am spending more money for a bigger hdd.

On top of that last gen we saw patches disappear once a game got old, so kind of makes it pointless uninstalling games if I can't save the patches on their own.

I been debating in my head on whether I should stick to PC gaming this gen. Hopefully they get smarter with the patches for games and allow us to back them up only.



 

 

Rogerioandrade on 28 February 2014

From a graphic standpoint, there will be some improvements, but not as impressive as the transition to 6th to 7th generation, for sure.

From a gameplay standpoint, I don´t see anything really new. It´s just like the 7th generation with a brighter lay of paint. I don´t feel impressed by the new generation so far.