I'm mostly underwhelmed by next-gen graphics. I was talking with duckroll on IRC, and he refused to accept that I thought Dead Rising didn't look that great. But it doesn't! Sure, it has some decent textures, and the characters look nice sometimes, but it's about as flat as a Dreamcast game. It's dominated by these massive planes that aren't dynamic, that don't feel any more realistic than the floor textures in Ocarina of Time.

The problem appears to be that the developers aren't focusing on graphics as much as they would if their families were going to die if the game couldn't pass for real-life.

So is the problem that the consoles are powerful, but the developers can't handle it?

The problem is that content creation is more costly than ever, I guess.

I don't think anyone is demanding perfect realism.

Every surface might be normal mapped, but why the hell is there a flat newspaper texture on the floor that won't move?

I've been wanting fully mobile and destructible environments in FPSs ever since Quake 1. Instead, we've gone in the direction of environments that are almost as static (though the occasional Havok-engined crate is appreciated) but with gabs of high-res textures and lighting. It's pretty frustrating, but I suppose physics is just that expensive.

Played Ridge Racer on PS3 today. Asked them where the PS2 was hidden, esp. since the controller was a dual shock.

It was the real deal, using a generic USB adaptor. I didn't care for it.

The current generation (Xbox360/PS3) is boring since we now have enough power to do all the old things in very high resolution, but not enough to do anything really new. I have high hopes for the generation after this one, though, which will hopefully include dedicated physics processors.

Cyrsis

HEY YOU GUYS!

Here's a tip about art: a lot of stuff is really easy to make look real. The hardest part about making things look real is making them move. Ok, thanks, that's all.

The current generation (Xbox360/PS3) is boring since we now have enough power to do all the old things in very high resolution, but not enough to do anything really new. I have high hopes for the generation after this one, though, which will hopefully include dedicated physics processors.

I've been wanting fully mobile and destructible environments in FPSs ever since Quake 1. Instead, we've gone in the direction of environments that are almost as static (though the occasional Havok-engined crate is appreciated) but with gabs of high-res textures and lighting. It's pretty frustrating, but I suppose physics is just that expensive.

Man, the most important thing to making "next gen" or whatever games look really nice is animation. That also happens to be what takes the most time/manpower/money to do, so I'm not expecting much :(

Combine animation with physics, and you get something approximating weight. Half Life 2 doesn't have what Gears of War has, but it is certainly the more impressive title from a technical perspective (and, uhh, from every other perspective).

what went wrong?

what went wrong?

You exceeded your bandwidth, that's what!

Dunno where to find the original quote anymore, but according to some developers, it boils down to a few things.

The 360's GPU (the graphics bit) is simply superior. It can draw stuff faster, has better shader possibilities, and uses clever recent technical thingies to do antialiasing in a very efficient way. Antialiasing isn't nearly as well integrated in the PS3, and doing it well relies on programming tricks that eat up a lot of memory. Apparently the 360's bus are more efficient too, i.e. the components lose less time in communicating between each other.

The last problem is that while technically superior, the PS3's multi-lotsa-core thingie is really complex and different to program for, while the 360's programming is very close to a PC's or, for that matter, an XBox's. Because of that, the analysis concluded that it'll take a few years before developers can really draw out the PS3's power. For now they're just busy undrestanding how the thing works.

It's equally liquely I'd say that the x360 will do things that both the ps3 and x360 aren't able to do.

Because, deep down inside, it's all about the dirty tricks.

In five years time developers will have probably figured out how to make the PS3 do things the 360 just plain won't be able to do, I'm sure. I just hope they're not planning on releasing the PS4 by then because all the dickwaving between the systems will just start all over again.

It's not the "Gears of War engine" it's the Unreal 3 engine ok.