Topic: After seeing Bayonetta 2 and 'X' yesterday...

When everyone was talking about how high-end the PS4 and One were going to be and that their graphics would blow the Wii U out of the water, I was expecting all the games to look like this.

Maybe it's a matter of me preferring stylization over realism... I dunno. These videos together, in my opinion, show the gap between Wii U and PS4/One aren't as vast as everyone makes it out to be.

you're both idiots if you think this is true.

No need to name call. I agree with them, as well.

The x86 architecture has been in use by developers for well over a DECADE on PC games, so it's not new. In fact, nothing about the new consoles is new: this was the intention. They were intended to be easier to developer for (read: be highly optimized mid-range PCs) in order to lower development costs. The reason we've seen so much growth in the past was because consoles were NOT easy to develop for, and it took time to understand the architecture, which was usually highly customized to fit the purposes and form factor of the company's console designs and intentions.

The PS4/XBox1 don't have this hurdle anymore, as they are very familiar to developers, and the power can be tapped into very easily. We will see optimizations that will open up some breathing room for other enhancements or a more stable framerate, but it's foolish to believe these systems are going to see a monstrous leap like the PS3/XBox360 saw over the course of their lives.

People who aren't expecting another monster leap from competent developers are kidding themselves go compare a 2001 CG film to one from 2006.

At the current point we're going to get to the point were most realistic games look like beyond, and most cartoonish games look like a Pixar film.

APU used is a custom A-series part it has a mix of AMD and Sony technology.

but we have not built an APU quite like that for anyone else in the market. It is by far the most powerful APU we have built to date,

"Customized" hardware you will not find in a PC for a reason, Sony agrees tho. That a console needs depth, that's why the PS4 will come into it's own a few years down the line to last the 7-8 years on the market.

I agree with @kkslider5552000 , although name calling was unnecessary.

All these consoles have a while to go before we see what they can do at 100%. They might be easy to get results from, but there's always ways to get more performance. Even Xbox 360 and PS3 still have juice in them that hasn't been tapped, but that's mainly because of disc and installation combinations that give software more performance via the HDD basically being used as a cache. The same could easily be done on these current generation consoles. No one has gotten even close, and nor is it necessary right now.

The Wii U's first step was from the end of Xbox 360 and PS3's lifecycle, so I think that has had more effect on Wii U then it has Xbox One and PS4. In otherwords, Wii U has been riding off of the back of what Xbox 360 and PS3 offer(much like Xbox One and PS4, but to more of an extent) and it really hasn't had a chance from other aspects to really give itself its own identy. Even Nintendo catching up in HD graphics shows that most of what they've done so far was based on high end last generation games. After games like Smash Bros. and Mario Kart come out, Nintendo will undoubtedly make a game that pushes the limits more so than slightly enhanced 7th gen games. The Wii U's life cycle has been some somewhat skewed, based on when it was released, kind of like the Dreamcast, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be met by the same fate.

I agree with you that this games will look better with time, but i have to point out - again - that when your games already look a lot like reality, theres not much room for improvement, except in phisycs and AI, what certainly makes this generation exciting.

@shingi_70
I agree. That FF7 cutscene is arguably what even 7th gen games can offer in terms of graphic fidelity. Besides that, animations are a key area that needs more attention than graphics, in this case, IMO.

EDIT:
@rbmoura85
I agree, but there is room for improvement, even still. The AI and interaction is definitely where most impressions will be had. They need to give more options that we didn't really know were there before, even if the graphics don't improve much. Like shingi said, Pixar smooth animations and realism is bemoing more normal for video games, but the gameplay needs to go above and beyond. Take Heavy Rain for example. All it is is opening a door and walking around rooms with a few action sequences/quick time events. Great graphics, but boring as hell gameplay that could have been more.

EDIT2: Also, I'm not saying games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls are complete trash, but that those games kind of derive from the same genre, so it shows that it's easier to apply realism to a game that doesn't require many choices to be made by the player.

Finding Nemo (2003): $94mil budget
Tangled (2010): $260mil budget

Do we really want this to happen to video games?

It arguably already has, looking at current budgets for video games. However, I think it would be of best interest to take a breather and focus on creating games that don't necessarily push the hardware to it's currently known limits, because that's pretty much what is making these budgets skyrocket and have a harder chance to turnover.

EDIT:
i.e. A game that costs $30 million to make today, will cost $15 million to make later on.

With that in mind, pushing the hardware and budgets isn't that bad of of a venture, as long as they know when to take a breather.

Yes. I think that all developers should seek to find a "sweet spot" between development cost and technical strength. Technology gets cheaper all the time, so graphics can always be pushed, but nobody should be pushing to clock out the hardware so early.

But when you have trailers like Forza 5 that focus almost exclusively on how pretty it is, I think we're on the wrong path here.

And admittedly, my example is pretty extreme. Finding Nemo is Pixar's cheapest films of the 2000s, but Tangled was notoriously expensive. It's one of the most expensive films ever made, not just animated films. Disney's next 3D animated film, Frozen, cost $150mil.

Maybe a better example would be Cars (2006, $120mil) compared to Cars 2 (2011, $200mil).

@CaviarMeths

Forza is a pretty bad example when the whole point of the game is too mimic real life racing as possible. I mean once you turn off all the assists and crank the game up to hard its pretty much needed to have a racing wheel to do good in the game.

Even than your going about this the wrong way. Tangled could have afforded to be stupidly expensive because it made up its money with merchanising. The first cars film under preformed and is a pretty bad film but it got a ton of sequeks because the toyd sold so well.

Your pretty much complaining about a non problem at this point.

Welcome to the future where people will buy games for 200 bucks! Where we will delude ourselves thinking high tech super sonic top notch realism actually matters! Yeah!

@kyuubikid213
FFXV: [youtube:LBilT83Uq4A]
and The Order 1886: [youtube:XQzm9lwc2Tk]

The Order is sexy incarnate. I'd throw down Quantum Break based on the the small bits of what we've seen so far.

Even from last gen I can't think of much that looks better than Halo 4, Beyond and the Last of Us.

As far as Wii U games go I think Bayonetta 2 and Mario Kart will run away with it it, followed closely by Smash Bros and X.

Yeah, but you guys are simply assuming that the Wii U is not able to come close to this...

When we see Cod for the Wii, it doesnt look that much distant from the ps3 version...its noticeble, but tolerable

We could only judge if we saw this game running on Wii U.

The difference in graphics between PS3/360 to PS4/One is negligible. Since Wii U is stronger than PS3/360, of course the graphics difference between Wii U and PS4/one is even more negligible.

yes, graphics wise.
but if graphics where all any game could be played on a N64 with lower graphics and less polygons... sadly that's not the truth.

Graphics are not the only factor at play though so your point is negligible.