Saturday, February 8All That Matters

Still shocks me whenever people say that the jump from PS3 to PS4 wasn’t big when games went from looking like cartoons to almost life-like in only a couple of years

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Still shocks me whenever people say that the jump from PS3 to PS4 wasn’t big when games went from looking like cartoons to almost life-like in only a couple of years

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35 Comments

  • The last decent console jump. Now they oversaturate the market because they have bullshit refreshes between generations so new consoles just don’t have that wow factor anymore.

    It’s a sad day when Nintendo has the most exciting new consoles because despite the aging hardware, they actually try new things and aren’t afraid to make mistakes. They just make fun consoles. I haven’t felt that way about a Sony or Microsoft console since the PS4 and Box One.

  • I don’t remember anyone saying that to the extent that people are saying it about the current console generation.

    If anything I remember people being pretty blown away when they saw the gameplay trailers for some of the earlier titles like Shadow of Mordor, Ryse, and The Order

  • But what’s so wrong with things looking like cartoons? It doesn’t have to look lifelike to be considered a good game. I thought, for the limitations the PS3 had, the uncharted games still used the system pretty well to make the environments look GOOD. But other than uncharted, games can still look good without them HAVING to look lifelike

  • Idk. If you were around for every previous generation, then this isn’t a big deal.

    Lara Croft’s iconic massive chest was due to the polygon limit of the 3D engine on the PS1. Before that, we had top-down and side scroller games.

    But now, we had the N64 and PS1 that could handle 3D environments. It was such a huge change in the industry that figuring out the best way to navigate a 3D world hadn’t been established, and the controls would change drastically between games.

    PS2, Xbox, and the GameCube era gave us a huge graphic upgrade. Faces had dimension now and weren’t just pictures plastered on a flat polygon. Master Chief looked incredible, Snake looked like a real human, and Marcus Fenix poured blood onto your screen with his chainsaw. (Edit: Gears of War was actually in the next generation, my mind is getting soft with age.) Doom was experimenting with using subliminal audio to enhance the game. The industry was wild, imaginations soared as new indie companies rose to greatness and then fell in shambles. The power to create realistic worlds was almost here.

    The PS3 and Xbox360 Era was the last true leap in gaming technology. The last of the limitations in game design due to technology had been lifted. You could design any type of game, incredibly immersive and well polished. Graphics hit a level of realism that was unprecedented. The pistol from the original Halo was now a really blocky and jagged compared to the new sleek lines of Halo 2 and 3. Reflections were being fudged with clever code, online play is a standard thing now, internal storage, etc. Revolutionary upgrades have never been seen before.

    The jump to the PS4 was indeed impressive, but in a way, more akin to claiming the Bugotti Chiron is way better than the Veyron because the Veyron can only do 268 mph.

    The PS4 era was a hardware upgrade that really only increased the visual capabilities of the console. There were great games, but nothing really shattered the gaming world in the same way. Games still played the same. They just looked better. Games were bigger, and they could be downloaded digitally. Etc.

    This leap is nothing compared to going from 2D to 3D or going from MB to GB of storage space. It’s nothing to scoff at, but you can imagine why it didn’t grip us the same way.

    The PS5 and Xbox Series X both leave me feeling the same way as the previous generation. The console is incredible, and the graphics are absolutely mind-blowing. The problem is that CoD is the same CoD that came out on the Xbox and PS2. Skyrim is just Morrowind with a bigger world and some revised systems. Etc. The major labels aren’t revolutionizing anymore.

    The PS4 and PS5 generations brought us directly into microtransaction hell. Us gamers were naive and trusted that digital downloads wouldn’t be turned against us. Map packs were $4.99 for multiple new maps. It was an optional expansion pack. Now, they are charging $20 for skins, $15 for monthly battle passes, spending events, loot boxes, etc.

    While the systems indeed tower over their predecessors in terms of power, the industry has died and is slogging along in an animated state. I haven’t gotten excited for a new game in a while. The closest I got was Starfield, and at best, that was hopeful optimism. It’s a good game, but I just don’t feel like it’s blowing my mind. We’ve entered into late stage gaming, where games are more like interactive movies rather than an experimental medium. The next leap in gaming will be based on immersion, such as VR. We’ve truly reached a point where more pixels doesn’t matter as we can only be so immersed on a 2D plane. Until we can break the plane into full 3D immersion, we’re just going to see modest improvements in gaming.

  • It’s not that there wasn’t a jump between generations, it simply wasn’t nearly as big as the jumps we experienced between the PS1->PS2->PS3.

    Also, the PS4 much like the current era gave us numerous cross-gen titles at launch whereas every previous generation had exclusive launch titles that could only exist on those new generations.

  • The only thing that truly distinguishes the top pic from the bottom one is the use of lighting. Add a better atmospheric lighting on the top one and you’ll be hard pressed to see much difference.

    So yeah I totally agree with the premise. PS3 to PS4 is a marginal improvement, especially if you compare late PS3 to late PS4 rather than early to early or worse early to late.

    Like TLoU obvious looks much better nowadays but for anyone who’s known a generation jump older that PS3 to PS4, the difference is laughably small.

  • I remember thinking TLOU looked insane on PS3, then the PS4 version came out and I could not believe how big of a leap it was. Same thing with the PS4/Xbox One version of Tomb Raider. That blew my mind at the time.

  • To be honest, ps3 still isnt bad. It does look cartoonish but it looks very smooth and youre not-really seeing distorted pixel chunks anywhere.

    The generation of ps4 and other consoles after. Really focus on all the tiny details in texture and dynamic lighting and likely better movement with higher fps.

  • Nuts to me that Naughty Dog games running on PS4 are outperforming nearly the entire competition on consoles across the market. How does that not stake your drive & passion as a dev?

  • I can’t believe that we’re in the moment that someone would say ps3 graphics were cartoonish, I remember seeing GTA IV for the first time and thought graphics couldn’t get better

  • It’s not that it isn’t a jump, it’s just not as big as previous generations.

    Compare PS1 to PS2. Compare MGS1 to MGS2.

    Going from PS3 to PS4 wasn’t as big. And going from PS4 to PS5 REALLY wasn’t as big.

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