Consoles Are Holding Gaming Back

[BM19]

I certainly wouldn't say that graphics are at their "limit", nor would I imply that graphics mean nothing. They DO mean something, depending on how they're used in-game.

For example, with "The Last of Us" Naughty Dog used high-detail scenery and animations to immerse the player in the game's pseudo-realistic setting. (I say pseudo- because the zombie apocalypse premise requires a certain suspension of disbelief)
And it worked. I found myself marveling at the detail and design of each area, completely and utterly engrossed by the world my character inhabited.
BUT that immersion is diminished somewhat when my AI companions began running around a stealth-driven area and none of the clickers batted an eyelash. Or fungal-thing.
The problem is, of course, that the game simply didn't have the hardware resources to focus on ally AI as much because of the graphics, and this is a problem prevalent in consoles that often carries over to PC ports. Few developers would waste time and money on upping AI, polishing behavior, and fixing clipping issues for one platform.

Of course, with the next gen roaring straight for us, hopefully this will change. Graphics will always be a huge development cost, but at least they'll have the hardware resources necessary to not sacrifice one for the other -- or at the very least not have the same old excuse to do so.

 

[Foolery]

Right. Hey, PC gamers(myself included). Know why you haven't needed that "every two years or so" upgrade to your graphics cards since 2005? Consoles. What we need is better AI, open environments, etc. Not shinier graphics.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

I would also like to point out that consoles simply existing doesn't cause these limitations to be in place; rather, it's the reaction companies have had to it. Nothing is stopping a developer from making a game that totally takes advantage of high-end PC specs other than they'd miss out on profits from the console crowd, as well as PC gamers who do not have the best hardware. But I suppose that's just something of a nitpick of mine.

This is one particular opinion that I especially share with you. For some time now, I've been wondering why a PC developer doesn't simply come along and provide a PC-exclusive game that really truly does take advantage of the MASSIVE amount of space available on a gaming rig and simply make this sort of game that many people address on this thread- a game that is not placed under the limitations of consoles.

It seems as though most developers are perfectly happy with just making more RTS games or cutesy little indie titles with bland, black-and-white visual styles. Not to say that RTS games are bad (Indy games with trite, Oscar-bait-esque art forms are). Which makes me wonder why everyone seems to enjoy reclining in their sofas and talking about all of the things that their PC is capable of creating, but not MAKING those things.

Of course, independent developers don't have the budget to make those sorts of games, and big publishers want to sell on consoles, too. But isn't there anyone out there with some money and stones willing to actually go out and make a game that simply breaks free from every limitation set by this current generation?

 

[marshmallowSDA]

Most of the good indie games I've been playing barely look better than SNES games, maybe N64 level. So I don't really care. Do you expect AAA titles to be anything than interactive movies?

 

[DarkRyter]

Producing games at the current level of graphical fidelity is already pushing massive boundaries in terms of development budget.

Though I do admit, 60 fps would be very appreciated.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

Most of the good indie games I've been playing barely look better than SNES games, maybe N64 level. So I don't really care. Do you expect AAA titles to be anything than interactive movies?

I'm not sure if you're addressing my post, but when I mentioned indie games, I meant that despite them PC-oriented, none to few of them seem to display advanced AI, a particularly large scale, etc. that could help enhance their gameplay even further.

I was also mostly addressing Limbo and what appears to be its rather large following of knock-offs. Its gameplay was awful, but because the game was black-and-white and had a bunch of creepy moments it's considered a classic.

 

[RoBi3.0]

Console are not holding gaming back. They are holding it up.


Development costs are already astronomical. If developer switch from working within the confines of consoles and instead worked with max power PCs those cost would skyrocket even more.

Furthermore the most common and affordable PC is the off the shelf Wal-mart special. Gaming PCs have a steep entry cost. Not many people can afford to buy them. Yes, you can build one for cheap and it is not hard, but to the average non tech savvy person it is scary. This will drastically cut down on the potential video game market. Which means less games sold. Which equals selling them for more to make the same profit + added development costs. What all this means is: Say hello to 100+ dollar games, and the eventual crash of the gaming industry.

There is a cap to how good game graphics can get. There is really no rush to get there games look good enough right now anyway. AI and things of that nature could be improved, but at a rate that is not self defeating.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

thing is we're being subjected to diminishing returns in terms of graphics. Like jeffers pointed out, we're hitting a plateau and the work needed to make graphics look BETTER is no longer worth it as it takes too much time and money due to all the manpower required. Heck, the guy who designed the Wii came to this conclusion years ago which is why Nintendo has chosen to be more conservative in its latest consoles. The PC market isn't getting any better either; PC and laptop sales are actually WAY lower than before because PCs have gotten so good that upgrades are just plain negligible for most people. It's why in the coming generations we're going to have to have devs use lateral thinking in order to maximize visual presentation, narrative, level design, and gameplay

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

No they're not, because most games can be improved a lot as it is without even going anywhere near the graphics. As in they're not even making use of the abilities of current consoles. For the few games that do have the best AI and level design in the business, or like Skyrim need a lot of things taken into account continuously, the new consoles will open up some opportunities. For everyone else, making a better game would suffice.

And secondly, good. Don't want to have to buy a new machine every time a game is made. It's good that gaming is restricted on consoles to the consoles' capabilities, that's part of the reason people buy them.

 

[rob_simple]

Wow, we're at three pages and not a single 'Oh look, it's this thread again' meme. I am shocked.

OT: What is the natural conclusion for this graphics dick-measuring contest? That games will eventually look like real life? Because that will never happen. Well, unless we bring back the FMV genre; finally get that reboot for Mad Dog McCree everyone's been waiting for.

Personally, what I want from new consoles is not for the graphics to get better, but for the worlds to get bigger and the games more immersive through story and gameplay, not through shiny graphics because, as previously stated, they are never going to be so good as to convince me I am not just playing a video game.

There are a lot of PS2 and Gamecube games that still look fantastic, if we'd stayed with that level of graphical polish --maybe a little bit of improvement in animation and mo-capping-- think what the excess budget could have achieved: more games being released, publishers more willing to take a chance on riskier ideas, truly massive worlds; the kind of games you could never truly complete without years of play.

Instead the industry has bent to the will of the 'graphics are god' mob and now we've got studios going bankrupt left, right and centre because they don't have the multi-million dollar budget to make a dent in the mainstream market's carapace.

*Deep breath* And that is why I love places like Steam and PSN, where games can still be about games, where they don't need to look great to be great and smaller budgets mean you get an infinitely more creative selection than anything you'll find in the top sellers lists at any brick and mortar store.

 

[likalaruku]

I think developers need to stop focusing on graphics & put the budget into tried & tested engines, training voice actors to not suck at their jobs, better story & character development, & focus on the fun.

Graphic seemed to go further into the uncanny valley the more realistic they try to make them. Games are supposed to be an escape from reality, so why bother going for realistic at all? The cartoony graphics are one of my favorite things about Nintendo franchises & I love all the new 2D drop-down turn-based RPGs indie developers are making for PC.

 

[Vausch]

You're right for the wrong reasons.

The attempts to make games more realistic over the years have been what's holding gaming back, not them having better graphics. Think about it, most major developers follow this trend:

CoD is popular.

If we clone CoD, we will be just as popular.

If we are more realistic in the way ours look, it'll be even more popular.

-Another spunkgargleweewee game gets put on the market, sales don't meet expectations, publisher complains about used games and piracy being the problem, 40 goto 10.

It's not hyperrealistic graphics that make the games good, it's a sense of aesthetic for the game and engaging mechanics that are supported well by the game's story.

 

[The Lugz]

the higher the graphics, the greater the cost you have to put in for smaller and smaller improvements not to mention the uncanny valley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

The uncanny valley is a real thing, problem with this argument is it simply does not apply to gaming anymore we can already create photorealistic pictures and characters that are actively beautiful in their own right.

the concept of the uncanny valley really fits the switch from 2d to 3d graphics, where we had blocky robot like people trying to elicit emotions and coming off as plain creepy.

personally I find that were on the upward slope of the valley now, even if we may not be at the peak.

My two main gripes with current gen games are,

I need a world that seamlessly flows and has as few ques as possible that i'm playing a game and that does involve having 60+ fps for me simply because anything below 30 looks like a jittery slideshow.

my other main complaint with almost all games is the worlds are not complex enough with the exception of a few standouts like the witcher 2, trine 2 most game worlds are extremely simple compared to the characters and objects and it makes playing them feel strange, like I have an older generation's backdrop with pretty characters in it

with these restrictions uncorked with ram and speed on consoles so to speak, this generation could end up looking very nice all round and i'll be playing on pc so the fps issue evaporates by default.

as for console users, all I can say is pc is here to help you if you get bored of it all.

 

[Odbarc]

I'd pay twice a consoles worth if they made one with no load times. Introduced by Playstation 1 and it was never a good thing.
Only a few PC games have (fewer) load times at best. I want an UBER-SNES, cartridges and instant loading. I don't care if the graphics look like they should still be on the SNES - loading sucks! Sitting there and waiting for the game to start sucks.
It's what makes the SNES the best console of all time. That and an amazing library of games to go with it.



That isn't to say that there aren't great games and that they could exists without their load screens.
One (and of few) examples of a neat load screen was in Armored Core 2 where the load screen was also a readout of your mission and some minor background information pertaining to it.


An example of a HORRIFIC load screen would be League of Legends. Great game, lots of fun. One dude with a shitty ass computer? That load screen will look that way for even 10 minutes. That's a large portion of what would take up the game. Hell, even if load screens were always (or on average) just half a minute to load, you multiply that by the amount of games you've played (2000) and that's 41 days of sitting there doing nothing. DOING NOTHING! If you could read a book in every load screen, you would end up reading several novels worth. Just abruptly end this book when the real game begins.
It's likely some dude patented the idea and isn't making any money off it because no one wants to shell out cash for something that should be done.
(Side rant: Patents are destroying innovation and technological advances)

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Ah, remember those glorious days when only the richest of the rich could afford to upgrade their PC every year to keep up with games with insane System Requirements?

Yeah, fuck that.

Viva la stagnation so more people can play games on even crappy hardware. I'd rather have more people playing and enjoying a game then a spit-shine bloom effect.

Kneel before your master!

I am not expecting developers to spec for a Tianhe-2 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianhe-2]. But I do think it's time for an upgrade.

*coughs*

Ahem, I do believe that PC's also hold back everything else by not evolving past their current point for the last 30 years.

And I'd also believe the true master race that I would be =p.

 

[Baldr]

Ah, catchy subject, no? While I do agree that consoles are holding gaming back. I am specifically referring to the graphics. The graphics have stagnated over the past few years and I believe the most important reason is that every developer is developing for the consoles. Even the PC version is based off the consoles and won't make the most use of the PC's power. The current gen consoles are at their limit.

Of course there is light on the horizon. New consoles are coming and with it better specs. This (hopefully) means there will be a new standard for graphics. And as a result the games released on the PC will also be graphically better. Although I also hear people say the new consoles are already outdated.

What do you think?

I should note though that I don't think graphical improvements are absolutely necessary. It would be nice for the more realistic games. But for the more stylish games (aesthetic), it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

Absolutely not. Graphics if anything are held back by the tools in which the artist creates them. Actually consoles help by limiting the computing power and redesigning the tools so that an artist can get the most out of the tools.

 

[neppakyo]

Talking about memory and cpu/gpu.. If developers develop for the weakest system, which right now will be the xbone. It will only have 5GB ram available out of 8GB for games(maybe less with MS's TV TV kinect ad-ware UI, 3GB is needed for the OS's themselves) compared to 7GB of available ram of the PS4(1GB needed for the OS). It has a slower CPU than the PS4, and a noticeably weaker GPU (PS4 has almost twice the GPU cores than the xbone).

So that means less resources for AI, textures, amount of stuff going on in a open world, etc etc.

The best bet is to develop for the PC first, then scale downwards for the consoles, not the other way around that they do now.

Imho focus should be on 1.) Story, 2.) gameplay, 3.) graphics, in that order. Oh, and do better bug testing

 

[BNguyen]

My biggest problem with the whole 'PCs are the wave of the future in gaming' slogan is that PCs meant for gaming are not as easily available for people whereas consoles are much easier to afford and meant to play games specifically. In PCs, you have to download the game in order to play it, thus sapping up memory, and like every PC, it constantly needs updates to stay in shape for playing games where as consoles don't have to update nearly as often, maybe once a year or so. PCs also take up way too much space for playing a single game.
Aside from all that, graphics can only go so far before we get into the realm of the movie Gamer when games will have actual real people being characters, and by that time, prices for graphics drivers will have skyrocketed so as to be able to render every single particle of dust under your character's foot to the point of absolute realism.
Realistic graphics do not always a good game make, a people need to understand that, heck, good games can have large polygons, bad games can have small polygons, etc.

 

[The_Echo]

Consoles are what's driving gaming right now, and have been for decades.

They may be "holding back" gaming technology. But it is not now, nor has it ever been about having the best graphics.

It's about the actual game. And it doesn't matter what your technological limitations are, a good game can still be made.

 

[MrMrAwesom]

I would love gaming to be a bit more niche, quality people over quantity if you will.
I also love the mods... I don't play much but shut up, we wouldn't have gun game or any Garry's Mod videos with out em.
That said consoles do make it easier to develop for, since they only have to optimize for one perhaps two sets of hardware.

EDIT: Just thought, we probably wouldn't have Source Film Maker either.