It would have to be one of the 8 and 16-bit consoles. When you look at Super Mario World and DKC, it's like they're being played on difference systems. Same for Super Mario Bros. 1 and Super Mario Bros. 3. I can't think of another console that was that drastic.

PS3 and 360 are pretty notable. GTA V is far above early AAA games released on those platforms. I've only played The Last of Us Remastered, but I've seen footage of the PS3 version. I'm amazed they got those visuals out of a PS3, but the frame rate is crap compared to the PS4.
Super Mario Bros. 3 looks incredible for a NES game. It's well above Super Mario Bros and other NES games.

PS1 was also up there imo. While developers were getting a hold of the paradigm shift that was 3D graphics on consoles. The jump from launch to several years in was, frankly massive.

From basic, super low res textures and mega low poly counts in early fighting, sports and racers like Ridge Racer and Wipeoout to things that actually resemble things in real life like (more detailed) environments, people and cars. Games wise RE 2/3, RR4, Final Fantasy to the Tekken's later in the gen. Also for the very first time we had cel-shaded like graphics in Vagrant Story which was super impressive at the time and even now looks great.

I'd have to disagree on this, to me a game like Luigi's Mansion 3 looks significantly better than anything released in the first two years of the Switch.

We've seen games in the same series improve too; Mario Party Superstars looks better than Super Mario Party, Torna looks better than base Xenoblade 2, Doom Eternal looks better than Doom 2016, etc.

Any answer newer than the 16 bit generation is wrong. SNES by systems end was doing 3D games. Very primitive but still. F-Zero tried to give the illusion of 3D but Starfox got there. Mario World looked great on launch and still does but tech why Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's island were marvels.

Ranger X on Genesis had 3D effects in some stages and the wireframe models. It had added detail like going above the trees the lighting would change.

These are some gifs on Genesis/SNES games late in their life

SNES and Genesis by systems end had cutscenes almost FMV quality

Let's do a side by side of a launch game vs a late game in Genesis and SNES

Genesis. Last Battle vs Comix Zone

F-Zero to Stunt Race SNES

Let's not forget sound. Tales of Phantasia had voice acting and singing, they got this to fit in 64 KILOBYTES

Genesis could have near CD quality sound by the time the system was aging

None of the Genesis stuff I posted is using 32X nor SCD. It's all just the Genesis.

To my eye the lighting and shaders look nicer in Superstars, as well as the modeling and effects work. It's not a huge gap but I did notice it.

Sega Genesis, SNES close second. Maybe NES third.

I don’t think the newer gen systems hold a candle. These earlier systems by the end were doing things that had previously seemed impossible on the hardware. Things like GTA or Last of Us or Halo 4 were just prettier versions of the same games we’d been playing.

Either 8-bit generation offerings from Sega and Nintendo or 16-bit generation offerings from Sega and Nintendo.

Looking at titles for i e Famicom (befor NES launch in US) in the beginning to the offerings at the end of that consoles life is staggering (just jump in on NES if you have Nintendo online and for example look at Twin Bee, Ice Climber or Donkey Kong and compare that to SMB3, Kirbys adventures, Journey to SIius or Blaster Master), same can be said about the Mastersystem.

At the same time look at SNES, while looking good from start it ended in primitive 3D-games, the jump is immense. Sega Megadrives offerings from the early days have not aged well graphically, but in the end of that consoles life time the games looked really good too.

I think the PS3 and the Xbox 360 saw the most growth. It really was the age of HD development. Just compare Gears one Vs Gears 3 or Uncharted 1 Vs The Last of Us. The PS2 also had some immense growth in its graphics, still not as much as the PS360, I believe.

Famicom and 360: The Famicom launched with games like Donkey Kong and Popeye. By the time the NES, which was the same hardware repackaged for a western audience, launched it had true scrolling games like Super Mario Bros. A few more years and it had SMB3, which made the original game seem like another generation behind, and by the end it had Kirby, which could almost be mistaken for a 16-bit game.

The 360's launch games were pretty unimpressive graphically even at the time. Condemned was the game with the best graphics in 2005, and with games like RE4 on the Gamecube, God of War on the PS2, and Far Cry on the OG XBox, the 360's graphics were pretty unappealing at launch. Then came games like Oblivion and Advanced Warfighter, which started to show the difference between the 6th and 7th gens. A year after it launched came Gears of War, which finally showed off what that generation of consoles could do. Somehow the 360 was able to keep pace with the PS3 throughout the generation, getting all of the Call of Duty games. Even though Oblivion seemed cutting edge when it launched and Skyrim was leagues above it, Skyrim actually seemed somewhat outdated at launch in terms of visuals because of how far graphics had come. Halo 4 looked so good it was hard to believe it wasn't an 8th-gen game, and the 360 was somehow able to run Crysis 3. Not well, but it ran it. No one who saw COD 2 and Kameo at the 360's launch could have imagined the system could run games like Halo 4, Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, ect.


For least difference between launch and end of life-cycle graphics I'll have to go with the Gamecube and Dreamcast. The Dreamcast suffered from a pretty short lifespan, so there wasn't much time for graphics to improve and we'll never know how well the system could have kept up with the Xbox and the Gamecube if it had truly competed with them. Shenmue 1 and 2 are very advanced for their time, but when a system launches with Soul Caliber there's not that much room for improvement.

The Gamecube's launch titles were really good and held up extremely well. Rogue Leader still looks good to this day and while Rebel Leader does look better, it's not that much better and still uses much of the exact same assets. Other games at or near launch included Luigi's Mansion, Melee, and Wave Race Blue Storm, all of which were still graphical showcases for the system in its final years. Metroid Prime, REMake, Prime 2, and RE4 all set new benchmarks for graphics, but they weren't a giant improvement over the launch games like you usually see for most systems. I'd actually say the Wii had a bigger difference between its best-looking games and its launch games than the Gamecube did. Mario Galaxy, Red Steel 2, Conduit 2, Prime 3 and Other M, The Last Story, Skyward Sword, and Sonic Colors have a larger improvement over Twilight Princess, Red Steel, and Wii Sports than Prime 2, RE4, and Rebel Strike have over Rogue Leader, Luigi's Mansion, and Pikmin.