Nvidia has been making progress yes but these chips weren't available when PS4/XOne were being developed/released. You have to think in the range of HD7970 or GTX 580 series, and then you are talking 200W+ consumption and $400 cards. Maybe GTX 680 if they could have gotten the chips early but that's still close to 200W, and that was a $500+ card back then.

I'm not saying PS4/XOne are not less impressive than their predecessors at launch, that is a fact, but you have to look at it realistically. And if we look at inflation $399 now is $299 in 2001, the launch price of PS2. And that is the sweet spot.

Only thing that i can think they could do is come with a mid-gen refresh of the systems with a little extra horse power. It would allow the same games to run at 60 fps and could be beneficial to VR. Even if not, this gen won'' be so long as the last.

And don't worry about PC, if the difference becomes big enough developers will start to put in the extra effort for the PC version, or even PC as the main platform.

Witcher 2 had to be substantially downgraded to run on the Xbox 360, so the game clearly benefitted from not originally having to cater to console hardware.

Yowch, if they expected 2.5 TFLOPS from current gen consoles, they must not have been pleased with what they got.

PS4 is what, about 1.8, Xbone about 1.3? (And Wii U not even 1TFLOPS)

Can't really tell from watching youtube. I don't much care either, as long as looks nice and runs well, I don't care if technically the PS4 has a few more blades of grass.

The new ultra preset from the update widens the graphical gap between pc and console. Obviously, it's still not at the level that the title was initially introduced at.

I got the day one edition this morning and i have to say on ultra at 60fps, the graphics are much better then the videos shown on youtube and better then the one here. The sheer size of the world with zero load times and incredible draw distance. the detail of the world is amazing and the details put on the important characters and npc are is great. Fighting is much faster and better and much more responsive then witcher 2. Not to mention , nvidia hair works looks great on geralt and the enemies. looks like realistic. Compared to the vg trailers, its quite close , but not exactly like it. Played 3 hr and 20mins and i have done only 1 story mission and tonnes of side quests. Also in thsi game, you have to repair your weapons and armors, the upgrade tree is alot more detail and it follows more in line with skyrim where you have to choose between light, medium and heavy armor. Mutagens plays a huge role with upgrading your character skills and it links with the main skills you are given. How you link it , will determine the mutagen benefits

Sorry for double post but the preset for the graphic options witcher 3 are quite small compared to witcher 2 ones. My eldest brother has teh xbox one version. the frame rate is very stable and looks really good for a console game. The difference between ultra pc and console  is pretty and noticeable . Its just about the framerate difference, but in the lighting, vegetation, texture , shadows and draw distance as well.

PCG threw up graphics options, performance and settings article 14hrs ago.

http://www.pcgamer.com/witcher-3-graphics-options-performance-and-settings/

From what I'm seeing medium to Ultra really doesn't look that much different and the gains don't appear to be that great either, Gameworks with the other options from what I'm hearing take hits on fps # and from what I;ve seen from trailers showing off the Nvidia hair doesn't make it a world of difference either, if you like slight flowing hair in exchange for an FPS hit then by all means, I just find it annoying how the minimalistic this all appears, the GW+hair is minimal but takes a hit on fps so it's more or less a trade than a win/win gain, I feel it's not something we should haver to wait another 2-3 years just to wait for new hardware to come out and then play it the way it was meant to be played, R* gets away with that somehow.

Also toppest of keks at Nvidia's slider:
http://international.download.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-texture-quality-interactive-comparison-1-ultra-vs-high.html

Apparently there's also a tweaks guide from them to put in some of the looks from previous versions we've seen but they will definitely take a hit on fps and again they don't sound like massive world changing tweaks either.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide#config-file-tweaks

I probably should have made a thread about this for the PC ver but since this one has both PC/PS4 mentioned (and sadly both look more or less the same thanks to parity), I thought I;d just post the details here.

Also Witcher 3 screens in 1440p:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127773964@N03/sets/72157652536729480

benchmark test with the Titan (original not X) makes my sides explode:
http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-initial-benchmarks/

Ultimately I just feel disappointed from all that's transpired, I mean what we're seeing is minimal gains and they are asking for much higher end hardware which in the end takes hits anyway because the game is apparently so demanding with HW/GW/Ultra to show so little in returns, it reminds me of when WD wanted higher hardware and you got nada in terms of gains.

I was originally going to build a new spec for this but now I don't see the point, well not for this game I mean, I'm still going to build the spec to it's original design but I feel it's going to be geared towards MGSV, I'm not even showing any high hopes for AK let alone anything from ubisoft or bethesda.

The graphics are soomth on my 980. i have everything on ultra including hair works and i get 60fps. i only have a 980 lol. Theres a difference between the console version and pc on ultra. its massive difference , but its definetly noticeable.  If they made it any better looking than that , n one would be able to play it and they will lose alot of sales as most gamers dont have those kind of specs. The Hair technology is quite nice especially when you run or when the wind blows through it. For the sheer size of the world, the graphics are beautiful. for me the best looking open world game .

How the game runs on a $450 PC with a mix of Ultra/High settings. 

Pentium G3258 (4.6 Ghz OC) + R9 270

"FPS: Min - 30, Max - 50, Average - 35"