Once upon a time when i was but a lad...
I had this old Master system. I played with the C64 and the Atari 2600 over at a friends house before that. The master system graphics looked amazing.
Then the Mega Drive (Genesis) came around and the graphics looked amazing.
The Saturn and Playstation threw me out of the chair. Everything looked like legos but i could move freely. With racing games, i could drift and slide like i can in a real car.
The next console Generation had the dreamcast and sega pretty much threw themselves out of the race with moronic marketing.
I jumped over to PC since i liked Mouse controls ever since the "Amiga" Computer.
The Graphics became better and better over times. The modern console generation came around and the graphics looked wonderful.
But there are still a few things that could look even better. Most of the floors are still completely flat, which looks a bit funny when you have a texture on there which tries to look like cobblestone or something.
This stood out for me the most when i watched the Trailer for the new Elderscrolls game. Since the morrowind trailer, those games had me glued to the monitor because of the amazing graphics.
This new one did not.
Don't get me wrong, the trailer looks good, but by far not as good as the trailers for oblivion and morrowind looked for their time.
It's amazing what they did with the "old" hardware and the trailer looks good for something that comes out on what will be 5 year old consoles when it comes out.
So the graphics of new games will be tied to whatever the current console generation can do; Which has me staring at the console market. It seems like i wont see games which use tesselation or other new effects until a new console generation comes around.
We are "stuck" on the current console generations graphic level. Which does look very nice, so i don't think a new console generation is waiting to be announced.
However, i do think that we will have another console generation change in the "traditional" way. The new consoles will be influenced by not having a graphical quantum leap like the previous generations.
When will this next Generation come and will it be the "last" one in the "traditional" sense?
Or will there be new concepts that pretty much end the traditional home consoles and offer something new? You can no longer advertise with cool new Graphics. Sure, cool graphics will be in any new advertisement but it wont be a new quantum leap.
I certainly can see room for graphical improvement, but after a new console generation comes around, i'm not sure. Graphical evolution will eventually reach a point where any improvement will be prohibitively expensive because no one will care that this and that looks slightly better because it already looks good.
Nintendo seems to think that we've already reached that point.
Will a ne console Generation bring graphical "Perfection"? Will we run around in Gameworlds that are bigger then the one of "Just cause 2" and look like "Avatar"?
Will we experience new Ideas because developer can then do pretty much anything without even thinking about hardware limitations?
And what would happen after that? The graphical Evolution will eventually end when we reach a point when graphics can't get any more realistic. Where will we go from there?
I had this old Master system. I played with the C64 and the Atari 2600 over at a friends house before that. The master system graphics looked amazing.
Then the Mega Drive (Genesis) came around and the graphics looked amazing.
The Saturn and Playstation threw me out of the chair. Everything looked like legos but i could move freely. With racing games, i could drift and slide like i can in a real car.
The next console Generation had the dreamcast and sega pretty much threw themselves out of the race with moronic marketing.
I jumped over to PC since i liked Mouse controls ever since the "Amiga" Computer.
The Graphics became better and better over times. The modern console generation came around and the graphics looked wonderful.
But there are still a few things that could look even better. Most of the floors are still completely flat, which looks a bit funny when you have a texture on there which tries to look like cobblestone or something.
This stood out for me the most when i watched the Trailer for the new Elderscrolls game. Since the morrowind trailer, those games had me glued to the monitor because of the amazing graphics.
This new one did not.
Don't get me wrong, the trailer looks good, but by far not as good as the trailers for oblivion and morrowind looked for their time.
It's amazing what they did with the "old" hardware and the trailer looks good for something that comes out on what will be 5 year old consoles when it comes out.
So the graphics of new games will be tied to whatever the current console generation can do; Which has me staring at the console market. It seems like i wont see games which use tesselation or other new effects until a new console generation comes around.
We are "stuck" on the current console generations graphic level. Which does look very nice, so i don't think a new console generation is waiting to be announced.
However, i do think that we will have another console generation change in the "traditional" way. The new consoles will be influenced by not having a graphical quantum leap like the previous generations.
When will this next Generation come and will it be the "last" one in the "traditional" sense?
Or will there be new concepts that pretty much end the traditional home consoles and offer something new? You can no longer advertise with cool new Graphics. Sure, cool graphics will be in any new advertisement but it wont be a new quantum leap.
I certainly can see room for graphical improvement, but after a new console generation comes around, i'm not sure. Graphical evolution will eventually reach a point where any improvement will be prohibitively expensive because no one will care that this and that looks slightly better because it already looks good.
Nintendo seems to think that we've already reached that point.
Will a ne console Generation bring graphical "Perfection"? Will we run around in Gameworlds that are bigger then the one of "Just cause 2" and look like "Avatar"?
Will we experience new Ideas because developer can then do pretty much anything without even thinking about hardware limitations?
And what would happen after that? The graphical Evolution will eventually end when we reach a point when graphics can't get any more realistic. Where will we go from there?
