Back in last gen, games that had sequels usually had a pretty nice step forward in the grpahics deptartment. (Such as Halo and the Splinter Cell series).

Now with the next generation games and all that photo-realism graphics, is there really much to upgrade in terms of graphics aside from a newer art style? Is there really room to upgrade the graphics when Gears of War 2 comes along? (as an exmple) Although, somehow the Splinter Cell series always seems able to upgrade its graphics looks every year...but that was last gen...what about now?

We have still yet to reach those movie type graphics, ie the ones you get in fmv
cut scenes. Graphics will have finally finished their long road achievement once
they can run like this without a problem at a silky smooth 60fps. Whilst it
seems like graphics can' t get better now, we still have AAAAAAGES to go before
they are perfect.

I think we will see the same leaps and bounds made, particularly as developers learn how do better use the 360' s 3 cores and how to better " off load" onto the PS3' s 6extra cpus. Also, I wont expect the Wii to be a graphical slouch itself though, as its slighty technically superior to the Xbox(from the short list of specs Ive seen), and after games like SC3, Riddick, and RE4 last gen, the Wii should be able to top those, which is still saying something.

We' re hardly at photorealistic graphics. I think graphics will continue to improve at the current rate for a while yet. Don' t expect complete photorealism until at least 2015 - 2020.

I wouldn' t say that Halo 2 had a step up in graphics - not significant at least and not in all areas (some were downgraded - textures)

I hate realism , what I want is a game that' s believable.

when I hear realism I think " no vampires,no superheroes" and shit like that :)

Wind waker wasn' t realistic yet it seemed believable in this world and this style.

HALO - same thing, MGS with anime characters still seems " real" ,Half-Life 2 seemed real,Mario Galaxy seems believable and I think it boils down to how much time you spend on those enviroments and the world itself.

Back in the NES days games weren' t real at all, yet they were believable and that kept us hooked.

We don' t need 1:1 realtime world visuals to enjoy games - we play games cause they are unreal.

Graphics will ALLWAYS improve with time, our standard in game graphics will never be on par with cgi, becuase they are both advanceing, cgi will allways look better.

But that dosent mean, come PS4, Xbox 471 + Sega Dreamcast 2 that we wont have graphics that look great,they will look like our current cgi films [advent children, shrek] ,but not this gen.

We will never get phototrealitisc graphics, not in the foreseeable future becuase even if they look great, things like animation, lip sych, and physics will allways hold it back, causeing it to classed under the Uncanney Valley [http://www.joystiq.com/2006/05/18/heavy-rain-in-the-uncanny-valley].

Graphics will reach a saturation point though, like the differance between this generation and next gen wont be that huge [ps3 - ps4].

Companys will have to innovate, just like Nintendo, in the future.

Its the PS3 where u' ll see a major graphical improvements over time.

I' m pretty sure we are far from what can be achieved in graphics but I do believe that we are close to reaching a peak where the graphics don' t affect the overall experience.

Agreed with ginjirou. Also it' s getting more and more expensive to create tonnes of art and visuals with exponentially more detail in real-time. Some rich companies will carry on trying to make the best looking games...

But increasingly more ' poor' companies will have to learn to differentiate themselves with content, style, creativity, characters, story etc.

It' ll probably get to a point before we reach ' true-photorealism' where it' s actually more profitable to be creative. (Cant wait! ) But eventually only a few developers will be willing to push the bounds of photoreaslism for research purposes - SquareEnix? Ubisoft? Crytek would probably have to leave EA when it gets to this...

It could be another couple of console gens before this happens though.

Its the PS3 where u' ll see a major graphical improvements over time.

Cough*fanboy*Cough
You do realise that the 360 GPU is superior right? Im not bashing the PS3, as Im sure it will have amazing looking games, but your disregard of the 360' s graphical capabilities is either intentional or ignorant.

I am alson inclined to agree with ginjirou. Once games hit a certain point, why improve the graphics? Why not put the extra time into giving the game style and content. When you look at upcoming games such as Gears of War, Assasin' s Creed, and Splinter Cell 4, you really must ask yourself why improve? If games for the rest of this gen only look that good, I dont think anyone would be disappointed, especially not if physics, story, and style are pushed farther than ever. In the end it boils down to what Gangsta said: I would rather play a fun game with pretty good graphics than a dull game with " amazing" graphics.

we always want improvement on graphics, and we or I want to see better graphics than assasin creed, i want to see killzone 2 graphics, and Final fantasy 13 trailer graphic, that' s what i call graphic, and that' s what SUPPOSED to be in this gen... well they are very close and i think in 4 years maybe we' ll se graphics like those.

i think there wasn' t a huge leap on graphics this gen because of the HD resolution that took a lot of power, is ps3 power would run game in 640*480 we will certainly see killzone 2 graphics much earlier.

ORIGINAL: immortaldanmx

I am alson inclined to agree with ginjirou. Once games hit a certain point, why improve the graphics? Why not put the extra time into giving the game style and content. When you look at upcoming games such as Gears of War, Assasin' s Creed, and Splinter Cell 4, you really must ask yourself why improve? If games for the rest of this gen only look that good, I dont think anyone would be disappointed, especially not if physics, story, and style are pushed farther than ever.

Why improve? Quite simply it' s because we can. If we can imagine it and the potential is there, why ignore it? I remember way way back when I first saw Doom (not Doom 3). At the time was blown away and thought " Wow, graphics sure don' t need to be much better than this." Now compare Doom to todays games and it looks positively archaic. The same happened when I first saw Unreal, Half-Life, Deus Ex, UT2004, HL2, and many more. Each time I wondered how graphics could possibly get any better than this. They always have gotten better and they always will. In one or two years, Gears of War, Assassins Creed, SC4, etc will all look a little long in the tooth compared to whatever is currently out or in development at the time.

Now with the next generation games and all that photo-realism graphics

Photo-realism is all a matter of perpective. Look at the description for a ps2 on a franchised game retailer site, somewhere there, you' ll see things like photo-realistic, and highly advanced graphics. Because when we saw them, we thought, " Wow! Can it really get much better than this?" There' s always going to be room for improvement, no matter how powerful our graphics chips and processors get.

Sega Dreamcast 2

Forget this race then, I' m saving sheckels for that!!!

Why improve? Quite simply it' s because we can. If we can imagine it and the potential is there, why ignore it? I remember way way back when I first saw Doom (not Doom 3). At the time was blown away and thought " Wow, graphics sure don' t need to be much better than this." Now compare Doom to todays games and it looks positively archaic. The same happened when I first saw Unreal, Half-Life, Deus Ex, UT2004, HL2, and many more. Each time I wondered how graphics could possibly get any better than this. They always have gotten better and they always will. In one or two years, Gears of War, Assassins Creed, SC4, etc will all look a little long in the tooth compared to whatever is currently out or in development at the time.

I see your point.

Cough*fanboy*Cough

Actually itr' s not fanboy talking - he seems to have played games a bit more than you - cause it' s not about being more powerful - it' s about Sony' s policy for middleware , they have signifficant changes in games visuals over each year until they reach almost 100% harware performance rate.Playstation systems are the only ones that grow this way over time.It' s actually a flaw since 1st titles are pretty crappy , but users have a nice step up in graphics each year (unless they own other systems - then it sucks)

It' s actually a flaw since 1st titles are pretty crappy , but users have a nice step up in graphics each year (unless they own other systems - then it sucks)

Y' know, that almost makes me believe in their " you' re really paying for potential" mindset... almost. No, but i do see what you' re saying. They do seem to have a better curve when it comes to visuals than most other consoles.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Graphics will have finally finished their long road achievement once
they can run like this without a problem at a silky smooth 60fps.

But once games all hit 60fps, then what? Sounds like we' ll have to hope more about the content and story after that 60fps is hit as a stander...unless you want to go nuts and make the new bar 120fps?

No current HDTV' s support 120Hz so having a framerate of 120fps would be redundant.

I don' t mind games that run at 30fps is it' s capped like in PGR3, but Moto GP 06 is supposedly 60fps but it isn' t capped and there are SERIOUS drops on tight corners and it really affects the experience.

ORIGINAL: ]GaNgStA[

Actually itr' s not fanboy talking - he seems to have played games a bit more than you - cause it' s not about being more powerful - it' s about Sony' s policy for middleware , they have signifficant changes in games visuals over each year until they reach almost 100% harware performance rate.Playstation systems are the only ones that grow this way over time.It' s actually a flaw since 1st titles are pretty crappy , but users have a nice step up in graphics each year (unless they own other systems - then it sucks)

Are you sure that goes for Sony as a whole a not just the PS2? As far as I remember the PS1 pretty much had the same kind of graphics from beginning to the end.

hell no ginjirou hell nop, playstaion 1 improved a lot, and many were amazed of what this machine could pull off, you could simply compare

tekken 1 and 3
final fantasy 7 & 9 (2d quality graphic)
vagrant story with any game that was released in the first two years even metal gear solid
wipeout 1 & 3

the major difference people noticed is the huge decrease of pixelisation, graphics look smooth closer to n64, in the latter games, you don' t see those annoying grooss pixel squares on the wall.


same could have said for ps2

sony consoles alwys improve a lot over time, and i hope it' ll be the same for PSP and PS3. (PSP is already showing improvement)