I don't know about goal posts but I've gone on record several times saying that this entire gen felt like gen 7.5. I watched Ryse on Twitch and it actually made me NOT want an Xbox One. I just wasn't impressed. And Second Son was my second PS4 game. Just like the PS3 (and PS2 now that I think about it--that's why I bought The Bouncer) I wanted my second game to be a graphical monster.

Maybe I just had unrealistic expectations but I was disappointed with both. It took a long time for me to be happy with the 8th gen. It was a slow evolution. The PSVR, on the other hand. I was blown away on day one. That's the "wow" I wanted from a new machine. I think I've said Until Dawn was the first game that looked next gen to me--but thinking about it, it may have been The Order. Never played Killzone even when I could have gotten it for free. 

Maybe it's less about moving goalposts and people genuinely not being amazed.

*Edit* I actually wound up buy Ryse three different times 😂

Not sure what you're saying, do you mean no game can be next gen gen because they can just scale everything down and have it run on a mobile too? That would mean BF5 isn't a current gen game because it has the same gameplay as BF 1942 from 2002, with only a bit better rocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ybtURWmcdU

Next gen is all about new gameplay experiences, not necessarily new gameplay elements or even guaranteed better games. There will always be crappy games no matter how powerful the hardware is. Hell, we've already seen a bunch of them like Godfall and most games during MS's conference.

In any case, it doesn't matter what me or anyone on this forum thinks about both companies conferences. We can just look at the numbers. The Unreal 5 demo got over 11m views, has nearly 300k likes and only 6k dislikes. MS's conference had 1m views, 35k likes and 45k dislikes... Its a bit pointless to pretend that we don't know why both companies got the reactions they did, and what an introduction to next gen games should look like. We all know MS desperately needs to show something in July that has that same wow effect. We've already seen the reactions to a mere tech demo, so just imagine the reactions if Sony shows off actual games looking like that in June and MS has another stream showing Xone games with an optimized for Series X logo on the screen. 

It definitely could have if Series X was the base platform and they released practically a different game on Xone with key features missing. But 343 studios already told us that's not going to happen. Instead, it will be like Halo 4 that looked pretty much identical on 360 and Xone, just with an upscaled resolution and higher fps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO_Lku6EGGg

The Slipstream engine can also do amazing things, but just like with Unreal 5, developers won't be able to take full advantage of it when a game also has to run on older hardware. Like I said, things like Lumen and Nanite were specifically designed for next gen consoles. Turn them off because you're supporting a platform that can't handle it, and you basically got the Unreal 4 engine (Even though I'm sure Unreal 5 has other new features they haven't shown yet, that don't require next gen hardware). I read Fortnite will migrate to Unreal 5 too, but does that mean it will all of a sudden look like a different game and have things like unlimited geometry? Probably not, it all depends on which platforms and hardware they're supporting.

You know well what i mean so just reply to what you where asked. Since you admit this UE5 demo can be scaled down doesnt that mean Halo 6 can look this good and also be scaled down? It has been in development for a lot longer then this demo that you like so much.

It definitely could have if Series X was the base platform and they released practically a different game on Xone with key features missing. But 343 studios already told us that's not going to happen. Instead, it will be like Halo 4 that looked pretty much identical on 360 and Xone, just with an upscaled resolution and higher fps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO_Lku6EGGg

The Slipstream engine can also do amazing things, but just like with Unreal 5, developers won't be able to take full advantage of it when a game also has to run on older hardware. Like I said, things like Lumen and Nanite were specifically designed for next gen consoles. Turn them off because you're supporting a platform that can't handle it, and you basically got the Unreal 4 engine (Even though I'm sure Unreal 5 has other new features they haven't shown yet, that don't require next gen hardware). I read Fortnite will migrate to Unreal 5 too, but does that mean it will all of a sudden look like a different game and have things like unlimited geometry? Probably not, it all depends on which platforms and hardware they're supporting.

343 Studios have said "The Xbox One is not going to be a second-class citizen. We're building it so it plays and looks fantastic on Xbox One, and then everything else is plus-plus-plus, but we've got a few tricks up our sleeves that we're thinking about."

Interpret that as you wish, but to me that sounds like a game designed to look as good as possible on Xone and the "plus-plus-plus" meaning higher res, higher resolution and probably some ray tracing effects. We'll know for sure in July, but what we know already is that it's designed as a cross-gen title, which typically means it's designed with parity in mind. If they had said we're building it for Series X, but we're also outsourcing a Xone version, it would have been a different story.

Back when Unreal 4 came out, Epic didn't support ps3/360 and developers had to use UE3 for those platforms. For whatever reason, Epic has decided to still support current gen with Unreal 5. The only take away from it is that it doesn't mean a thing if a game is build with UE5. It only means something when it's not a cross-gen title and they can actually use the next gen features that were demonstrated in the ps5 demo. Lumen and Nanite aren't things that can just be scaled down so you'll get that same demo on ps4, just with less rocks. They are next gen specific features of the engine that are simply not supported on current gen hardware. 

You used this same interview and this same cherry picked quote in another one of your threads, goop. And you were educated on it by multiple people. At least get some new material. Here is a full quote from that interview with Stinkles:

Obviously the special citizen will be Project Scarlett and we've worked with that hardware team to make sure Halo Infinite shows up amazingly on it, and work with them to make sure that we know how to make sure the game looks amazing on it, but it will be [available] for Xbox One and it will look incredible. And it will also be for PC for the first time, day and date so that's exciting for us too.

That's changed the way we develop and the way we think about things, but we are always shooting for the best possible hardware target. This time it's going to be up to you to decide whether it's going to be Scarlett or PC; it kind of depends on your PC at that point. But the Xbox One is not going to be a second-class citizen. We're building it so Halo Infinite plays and looks fantastic on Xbox One, and then everything else is plus-plus-plus, but we've got a few tricks up our sleeves that we're thinking about.

I bolded everything that could be viewed as positive for the XSX version and I underlined with italics the one quote you pulled out to paint your agenda. Remember when you tried to tell us you were optimistic about Microsoft? At least you have dropped that charade.

I'm sure it will look amazing on Series X and I guess you can interpret what 343 studios said in different ways. Maybe they will make full use of the Series X hardware and we end up seeing a completely different game than the X1 version. Or... its going to be a multiplatform game that has to run on average pc specs and the X1, which makes it kinda hard to take full advantage of things like the SSD. We will have our answer in July, I guess.

Of course it can be interpreted different ways. You can read the entire quote or watch the entire interview and take everything said and look at it logically in its entirety or you can chop it up and only quote one sentence that supports your narrative and you get an entirely different interpretation. Of course, why would someone who claims to be optimistic take such an approach? Who knows.