Burnout Paradise developer Criterion reckons that developers who talk about maxing out the potential of a games console are being a bit silly.

"That's proof that you're not the best," technical director Richard Parr told Eurogamer's Digital Foundry channel. "It means you're out of ideas."

"You always find new ways to do things, the constraints lift. Not just with a new console generation but with every game you do," senior engineer Alex Fry added. "Whether it's a sequel or whether it's a new game, you learn to do things differently... better. The constraints go away because you learn. While it's nice to say you've maxed something out, there's not really any point."

Fry and Parr were speaking to Digital Foundry for today's Burnout Paradise tech retrospective, which explores the origins and processes behind one of the current generation's most respectable game engines.

Fry and Parr explain how the team set about constructing a world that performs equally well on PS3, Xbox 360 and latterly PC despite the difficulties experienced by their colleagues at other studios.

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TheSource: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/criterion-nobodys-maxed-out-ps3-360

I also recommend reading the tech retrospective article where they talk about multiplatform development and even technical stuff that may or not interest you.

But to re-focus on the concept of the cross-platform "pragmatism", there is no lead platform in Criterion, no separate teams dedicated to different consoles. There is a gameplay experience that is the singular focus and the commitment from every member of the Burnout team is that this will be identical regardless of the machine you play it on. And here's where things get seriously impressive, bearing in mind the performance levels we see in the final game: the vast majority of the code is exactly the same on PS3, Xbox 360 and indeed PC.

None of the consoles are maxed out - game developers have yet to code a game in assembly or take advantage of tiny hardware-specific hacks like NES palette-swapping.

Also, why does everyone ignore the Wii in these kinds of stories?

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=76826&page=1

Yeah, some PS2 games from 2005 looked almost like current gen games.

What do you mean "ignore the Wii"? The whole point of the Wii is that graphics are not what matter, so it's not all that relevant to this discussion. And even so, I can't think of any Wii game that looks better than God of War II. Once we have a game that pushes the Wii like God of War II pushed the PS2, it'll be more relevant.

Respect for Criterion increased 2 fold.

I doubt even the PS2 has been completely maxed out.

What is hilarious is when the developers say they are pushing the system to its limit, and then they make Fracture