I wouldn't just accept it, I would very much welcome it! It's really frustrating to wait an actual decade (if not longer) for a sequel these days.

Perhaps 4k wasn't quite what I was looking for, you're right.

1080p-1440p and 60fps should be more than enough for all games. Even 30fps is fine as long as it's consistent and smooth.

Obviously, if a game is capable of 90 or even 120fps, the devs should certainly do it. Shoot, I'd even be happy to settle for 720p-900p if it means games like Smash Bros, Spider-Man, the sports games, and FPS genres run at a consistent 120fps.

That was how I took it as well (and most others I would assume).
(I don't think the majority when talking about graphics think of resolution scaling or framerates, as those are seperate things imo)

PS4 games (in terms of scale, scope, models and textures ect ect).... no nonsense fluff, path tracing, multiple models of lightning ect ect ect.
Games are bloated and overworked, when honestly you can do away with alot of it, without it costing you sales.

I think the amount of game sales, based purly on graphics visuals that stun, are limited, and likely not worth the effort & money it takes to produce them (past certain points). Basically high effort for small returns, which ultimately matter not, if other parts of the game arn't great.

ei. don't polish a turd..... it won't sell for much more than normal crap does.

Ontop of that, there are drawbacks to these things as well, as it takes more time to do all that work.
(longer dev time = higher costs, less overall games for gamers)

I'm not saying every game should be 2D pixel art but.... yeah some of these dev studios waste money on graphics without there being a need for it.
If your Rockstar, obviously the insane attention to details, and beautifull texture work is well worth it.  The problem is, most game studios aren't.

At some point, developers, publishers, fans, and the entire industry has to say "enough is enough. We don't need to go higher than this!"

GTA VI - with its $1-2 billion budget, 6,000 devs, and 8 years of development. There's no reason any game should go beyond that. As a fan or developer, if you're not satisfied or content with a game on THAT scale - It may be time for you to find another hobby or career.

And with those dev costs, GTA VI would need to sell an absolute absurd number of copies within a reasonable timeframe JUST TO BREAK EVEN!!! And I'm 99.9% it'll do just that. After all, it's Grand Theft Auto. But on the 0.1% chance that it flops or fails, Rockstar Games would be in HUGE trouble! That's the kind of budget and project that, if this were any other game or franchise, can absolutely bankrupt a studio and put hundreds, if not thousands, of people out of a job if you fuck it up. Shoot, even if you don't, it's still not a slam dunk.

It gets to a point where you have to weigh the risks and rewards and realize that it's just not worth it and you're just being ambitious for the sake of being ambitious - Which is where padding happens and a game quickly wears out its welcome. NO game should take THAT long, require THAT many people, and cost THAT much to make, in order to make the most of hardware that is too powerful for its own good. All that efford for what? To simulate each strand of hair having its own individual animation pattern when the wind blows? To see each brand of glitter on each individual eye lash? To have a million and one extra customization options nobody asked for? Minor stuff and insignificant details that the majority of your audience doesn't care for, just serve to pad out the development time, add to the costs, and risk your audience losing patience and interest.

If Rockstar just kept things more simple and dialed it back a bit, GTA VI would already be out by now, would have already turned a profit, and tens of millions of people would be happily playing the game to their hearts' content.

That's also my position.

In my humble opinion, FPS is misleading when judging a game's visuals; 120fps doesn't make an absolutely outdated game like Prime 4 look good.

Something similar applies to resolution. There's a minimum standard for a good presentation, but high resolution doesn't make something ugly like Pokémon acceptable.

A game with the graphical level of The Last of Us Part II/RDR II is good enough for me; FPS and resolution are another matter. Visuals on par with the games mentioned would already satisfy me; them reaching 60-120 fps and at 1080p (+ upscaling ) or higher would be good enough.

Personally I'd argue Prime 4 looks good even on Switch 1 at 60fps just cos of strong art direction and optimization. 

I find that a fair position.  I think 1440p is plenty.  4k just takes resources that dont add much.  I would easily sacrifice graphical settings and resolution for 120 fps.  I greatly prefer prime 4 at 120 fos.  

Yeah I honestly find 4K to be overkill, 1440p looks good enough for me. Beyond that it's diminishing returns and I'd rather the power be spent on other things.

You have misconstrued my statement.
Resolution/Framerate is part of the visual makeup of a game. Poly counts are another part. Neither are the be-all, end-all, you need a balance of all the above to be factored into the design, in order to achieve the artists intent.
No point have a game run at 240P with Polycounts so high that it exceeds the ability for the display to visualize that fine detail.

Plus... A game may output at 120fps/4k, however not everything in a game operates/outputs at 120fps/4k.

Things like shadows tend to run at a fraction of the output image... I.E. Quarter resolution shadows is pretty common for 4k games, so they are 2k resolution... At 1080P that would be 540P resolution.
Texture resolution is often higher than display resolutions.

Consequently... Many games run animations at a fraction of the output framerate, thus a 60fps game may have animations at 20fps. - We see this in Halo 5 on Xbox One for example.

There is more to the visual representation of the binary choices you a-typically present.

We also need to remember... Different games benefit from different priorities.
An art driven game like Ori and the Will of the Wisps with such detailed and brilliant art benefits heavily from higher resolutions that allows those assets to truly pop.

Where-as a game like Doom absolutely benefits more from super high framerates over super high resolutions.

And same games need both... Even though arguably all games benefit from both, some have more of a benefit from one priority over another.

1440P is perfectly fine for most people, but again... That also varies from the types of games being run, the individual gamers visual acuity (People can have better than 20-20 vision), the size of the display and of course the quality of the display and how far they sit from the display.

No.

I mean, of course many games can stay on that level, but I do want games to keep getting as much better as they can.

For the sake of being affordable, we could stick at PS5 level for a long time, but I do hope eventually we can progress.

Going backwards tho? Nope.