Would you say that we don't see that huge leap...

...in quality of gaming from generation to generation like we used to? Do you believe that the jump in quality from, for example, NES to SNES, or from SNES to PS1/N64, or from PS1 to PS2 are long gone. It just seems to me that now there's really no huge noticeable difference between this gen and last gen like there were during past generational transistions. I mean the difference between the NES quality and SNES quality (for example) was night and day. Now, the difference isn't really that noticble; it's more like morning and afternoon.

The differences are gonna be in the way AI behaves, visual effects, social features becoming more in-depth, and emergent gameplay. Visual differences are gonna be a moot point, and people need to see that. It's all about the behavior of the game's mechanics and internal workings now.

The corporations just looking for a bigger bottom line took over most of gaming and it's good IP, they are not interested in making good games just flogging annualised mediocrity to sheep for please the shareholders.

If you want quality these days you need a community backed project with good funding or have to wait one of the rare, good developers that make games for gamers and not suits.

Locking exclusive games onto consoles as a form of life support just weakens and IP and makes it unavailable to the majority.

The difference between the last generation is almost non existant if you are used to gaming on PC, the new machines used 2 year out of date hardware on release.

Now, the quality of games won't change unless you get a new studio into that genre like Chucklefish Studios or CD Projekt.

@psx2514: i think a lot of people, like you, were expecting a big step up from last gen and are disappointed with what they've seen so far. look at something like gta san andreas on the xbox, then look at gta v on the xbox 360. there's a big technical difference between the two. whether these current gen consoles are capable of producing such a difference, once they throw off the shackles of having to make a last gen counterpart for each new release, remains to be seen, but evidence to show they can, so far, has not been overwhelming. both are crying out for that one big, exclusive system seller to show a glimpse of their true capabilities.

the lack of a demonstrable step up is the main reason why i haven't upgraded. why pay £400 for only slightly better graphics and the privilege of having to pay £55 per new release. it's just not worth it for me. i'll be sticking with pc gaming for now

@mastermetal777: AI and emergent gameplay aren't going to see a leap this generation.

Every generation means higher development costs, and higher costs force them to appeal to wider audiences.

Smarter AI would simply annoy a wider audience, (and would only really appeal to a minority of us), while emergent gameplay may not be hand-holdy enough for the masses.

Social features will see a boost though. I agree with you there.

I think mastermetal777 hit the gist of it.

We've reached the point where, visually, we're experiencing diminishing returns. You're just not going to notice the difference between a 60,000 polygonal model vs. a 600,000 one as much as you would 600 vs. 60,000. Improvements will be present in the details, but taken as a whole, the impact will not be as apparent or striking. People who only look at the surface aesthetics of current gen games and judge advancements on that factor alone are completely neglecting a large portion of the pie that is not obvious until closer inspection.

This isn't to say as time passes we're not going to see decent visual improvements (look at Arkham Knight to see this already), but I think what we WILL see alongside is better execution of the underpinnings that comprise the core mechanics and gameplay--better AI, physics, faster loading times, better/more consistent framerates, higher resolutions, larger worlds.

Also, give it some time. Developers need time to delve into new hardware and develop tools that utilize it to realize its potential. Because of this, I generally never really consider the release period of new hardware (or even a few years on) to be the "start" of next-gen. Only mid-late in their shelf life do I do so.

i noticed a nice leap from ps1 to ps2/xbox. But that was like basically going from 2d to 3d. Ya i agree with the nes to snes also, that was a nice improvement also.

I'm playing a few next gen games lately and not noticing why they are next gen... playing middle earth shadow of mordor... this game looks alright but looks last gen possible... i think the batman games from last gen looked just as good.

Problems the hardware, they cheaped out big time putting a budget low clock cpu in the consoles. You got like 1.6ghz on them while the PC cpus people game with they have those running at 4-4.5ghz at least on average. Almost triple the clock speeds.

That leap from ps1 to the xbox was a huge hardware difference also and its why we noticed it so much. Also the ps2 to the ps3/xbox360 was also a huge improvement in hardware power... they didn't cheap out in the least on the cpus or gpus.

So maybe they picked a lower clock speed for power efficiency, but at least they should have giving them ability to overclock to 4.5ghz for really demanding games. My cpu downclocks when its idle to below 2ghz to save power, but in a game it runs at a full 4.5ghz. not sure why consoles don't do this either.

Well, the way I see it, they had the ability to make just about any game they wanted to in the seventh generation and now it's a matter of expanding that capability in the eighth generation, so as to make larger worlds, better graphics, AI, and more AI characters. Minecraft on the Xbox one and PS4 have a much larger world then they did on the Xbox 360 and PS3, for example. If you look at the difference in the numbers of enemies between Ace combat zero for the PS2 and Ace combat 6 on the Xbox 360, you'll notice that Ace combat 6 had many more enemies to fight per mission than ace combat 0.