I think we shouldn't have to debate whether a game looks next gen or not. We should immediately notice a true generational leap in games and it should be self explanatory why those games wouldn't work on the consoles we already have. Isn't that's the whole point of a new console generation and why not many people upgraded to a mid-gen console?

So far both MS and Sony have done a lackluster job tapping into that next gen magic. MS has told us that their strategy revolves around the player, not the device. Whereas Sony's been telling us all this time they do believe in generation and are doing a complete reset. Sure fanboys can be idiots and I've been banned plenty of times myself for expressing my concerns. Call it concern trolling but the only reason I've been ranting so much is because I don't believe everything scales. I don't believe we'll see true next gen games when developers constantly have to ask themselves "will this work on a jaguar tablet cpu and HDD too?" I believe we should demand both companies to 'wow' and convince us why we should trade in the perfectly fine console we already have and spend $500 bucks on a new one  

Sony seemed to get it when they showed us things like the UE5 demo, Ratchet and HFW. And now Sony guys are all pissed that they seem to backpaddling and do the same thing that got people (like me) to shit on MS so much. 

I actually like the idea of they lauching the game near console launch that means they had a lot of time to learn the console on the first game so they can launch one or two games after fully understanding the console.

Having two versions don`t mean they will or won`t release simultaneously.

Your feeling is quite wrong, as we already know Series S is a thing for like 6 months, so Sony also knew when they first revealed the console so they didn`t made a decision to change those 3 games to be crossgen because of Series S being confirmed. As was posted on the site, HFW was being worked on PS4 already from the start and them moved to be a PS5 title as well. Miles Morales is on a PS4 engine with improvements so no reason to think it wouldn`t be crossgen. Sackboy well it looks more like a PS4 game than even a crossgen. So nothing on that was changed to be a PS4 as well.

MS didn`t figured it was a terrible idea. It is more like they always knew only a handful of games would be ready to release by 2021, and the only noteworthy one was Halo. And that one was being worked for like 5 years with most of the time X1 being the baseline. I would say it was more like MS was trying to get the best PR possible with what they had.

Gears Tactics I cross out of the list because it is already release on PC, so they are just holding the console version to release together with Series on launch. And well Grounded would be similar case. Psychonauts I don`t think is a game that would benefit from being only nextgen (Grounded would be the same I guess). The other games don`t have a release date so it can`t be said if they would fall or not inside the timeline MS committed to crossgen so for now it can`t be said anything about them.

I don`t think they are doing the opposite. MS case would be quite easy to solve, instead of saying 100% for the next 2 years they could say just what Sony said this week "we will keep supporting the console for the next couple years (in sony case 3-4 years)" and even say "we will launch crossgen games" or even use "some of our best games to be launched on the next couple years will be crossgen". All those would have generated much less flack than what they said, and also wouldn`t be countered by they making a full nextgen game on that window.

Sony case they didn`t say they wouldn`t have crossgen. They said they believe in gen and also that they wanted fast transition, neither means no crossgen.

You were plenty surprised and satisfied by SM:MM and HFW when it wasn`t said they would be crossgen, did they graphics became magically worse after the reveal? If not, if the game release just as or better than when they were announced would that satisfy you?

Two things...

One, I wouldn't put any stock into anyone backpedaling on HFW/SM because they are now known to be cross-gen. Because when the PS5 version of those games were or has been shown not a single person said they didn't look up to snuff. It's a very different thing when looking at Halo infinite in comparison. Or people talking about features that may not be in the as-yet-unreleased HFW game due to PS4 holding it back. How do they know that?

Two, diminishing returns is a thing. You can only make certain things look so good. Take a look at any of the best looking games on the PS4, while compared to first-gen PS5 games you can already see improvements, truth is that its not a night and day difference. It looks obviously better, but not generationally better. And this would be significantly worse when the PS6/XSX2 comes along. Look 6 years ahead and think of whatever the best the PS5/XSX would have to offer, then try thinking about something coming next-next-gen that would put that to shame. Just not gonna happen. 

An example I used before, you can only throw so many polygons and textures at a ball to make it look like a ball. At some int, no matter how many polygons more you add, or how much higher your texture rez is, its not going to make a difference.

Maybe you're right and it would be pretty disappointing if things can't get that much better then what we have now. Still, this looks a true generational leap to me. I think when it comes to stuff like level design, asset variation, world simulations, physics, RT there's still lots of room for improvement.

No doubt, there is a "leap there", but does it look generationally better than say GOW or TLOU2? 

Now take that a step further and think about what the best looking games next-gen consoles would look like. When more games start using quixel type photogrammetry textures we would literally be at a point where we have photorealism. And that's going to happen in this up coming-gen. You can't really get much better than that.

I mean, just look at what was achieved on a 1.8TF console then imagine what they can do with a 10TF console. And then imagine what they would do with 10 - 12TF consoles. By the 10th gen, we aren't going to be looking at another resolution tax, yes, we aren't going to be pushing 8K games, the focus would instead be on things like 4K 120fps. 

I think that can be considered a true generation leap. Games like GOW, TLOU2 already look amazing, but I feel like developers always have to make concessions. Either a game is super detailed with small scale environments or we get open world with bland graphics. Next gen, I'm expecting to see those two things blend in more, resulting in more interesting level design and new experiences. The UE5 showed that off nicely with typical small scale, detailed environments and then flying over it at an epic scale with the same kind of detail.

Also, if you look at RT, a RTX3090 was pushed to its limits running that marbles path tracing demo in 1440p/30fps. It going to be a while before we'll see full blown games on consoles with path tracing. Another thing that I think can improve a lot is VR. It's already quite amazing but if they can make the glasses smaller/ wireless and figure out some work around for motion sickness and have amazing graphics, the potential is insane. Here's a prototype of what VR glasses will probably look like in the near future.

Imo all those things are way more exciting than just 120fps/4k or Cloud gaming on phones. I'm already playing some games in 120fps and I honestly don't see that much of a difference. 

Horizon: Forbidden West already looks a cut above most games and thats a cross gen game. Demon's Souls remake looks great and thats a launch title. I'm sure God of War: Ragnorok will be the game that will blow people away. But Idd, stuff like TLOU 2 and GOT are already in a league of their own.

Its always like this every gen, wait a few years and the games will really showcase the potential of the machine.

Horizon: Forbidden West already looks a cut above most games and thats a cross gen game. Demon's Souls remake looks great and thats a launch title. I'm sure God of War: Ragnorok will be the game that will blow people away. But Idd, stuff like TLOU 2 and GOT are already in a league of their own.

Its always like this every gen, wait a few years and the games will really showcase the potential of the hardware.