mango drank
Member
In other words, circa 2030, will AAA games from the middle of this gen (2017-2018) seem badly-aged, quaint, outdated, etc, when compared to circa-2030 PS6/XB5 AAA games?
I ask, because I dug out my PS2 today and poked around some of the AAA games from 2003-2004. And, well, damn. From a technical perspective, these games haven't aged well at all. I'd gotten so spoiled by the steady incremental advancements over the two console generations succeeding the PS2/XBOX era, that seeing and playing these old games came as a shock: primitive low-res graphics, low-res textures, primitive gameplay mechanics, primitive animations, primitive game and menu UIs, etc.
At the dawn of the PS3/X360 era, people were already trotting out the "diminishing returns" line--that they couldn't see a huge difference between the games for the then-newly-available PS3 and X360, vs. the games for the previous gen. The same thing happened when the PS4 and XBONE were introduced. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, when comparing the AAA state-of-the-art here in 2017 vs. AAA state-of-the-art in the middle of the PS2/XBOX era, the "diminishing returns" line is preposterous. Over the course of two console generations, we've seen absolutely enormous gains:
Graphics:
Everything else:
All these things taken together, and exemplified by today's AAA games, make AAA games from the PS2/XBOX era look and feel very outdated. The jump from Metal Gear Solid 3 to MGSV is ridiculous (don't believe me? Go play MGS3 on a PS2 and come back. I guarantee your rose-tinted glasses won't hold up. I remembered it looking and playing so much better, in my mind's eye.). The jump from a PS2 Tomb Raider to a current-gen Tomb Raider, ditto. Gran Turismo 4 to Gran Turismo Sport. Deus Ex: Invisible War to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. FFX to FFXV. Sure, many games from the early-mid-2000s still hold up well and are beloved despite their technical shortcomings, but that's not my point, and it's why I'm focusing on AAA in particular: from a technical perspective, AAA games tend to represent the state of the art at the time of their release, and are good yardsticks for measuring technical progress. I'm not saying AAA games from the PS2/XBOX era are bad; I'm saying that, in general, they tend to look and feel very old.
With that backwards two-gen leap in mind, think ahead two gens: do you think today's AAA console games will seem just as antiquated in ~2030, as PS2/XBOX AAA games seem today? Why or why not? In other words, if you and your spouse give birth to a kid today, and on their 13th birthday you dust off your PS4 Pro or Xbox One X and fire up some of the classics, will your kid be amazed at how much progress has been made since he was born, or will he not see much of a difference?
Personally, I'm not sure what graphical technical advancements are coming in the next decade to rival the impact that things like normal maps and PBR have had. (Anyone know of any?) In terms of screen resolution, for many people, HD at a distance already approaches the resolution limit of the human eye, and 4K clinches it for the vast majority of the population at average TV viewing distances. This will eventually put a cap on texture resolution and poly count, which in today's games are both already pretty high.
On the other hand, I see lots of room for improvement in animation and game mechanics--the sky's the limit. But from a purely visual standpoint, I think I'm starting to agree w/ the "diminishing returns" chorus, which leads me to predict that today's cutting-edge games will still seem pretty damn good in 2030.
(Side note: VR/AR will go through its own interesting evolution, and there are lots of advancements particular to VR/AR on the horizon, but they won't apply to gaming on a 2D screen, which is what I want to focus on for this topic. Flat-screen gaming will still very much be a thing in 2030.)
I ask, because I dug out my PS2 today and poked around some of the AAA games from 2003-2004. And, well, damn. From a technical perspective, these games haven't aged well at all. I'd gotten so spoiled by the steady incremental advancements over the two console generations succeeding the PS2/XBOX era, that seeing and playing these old games came as a shock: primitive low-res graphics, low-res textures, primitive gameplay mechanics, primitive animations, primitive game and menu UIs, etc.
At the dawn of the PS3/X360 era, people were already trotting out the "diminishing returns" line--that they couldn't see a huge difference between the games for the then-newly-available PS3 and X360, vs. the games for the previous gen. The same thing happened when the PS4 and XBONE were introduced. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, when comparing the AAA state-of-the-art here in 2017 vs. AAA state-of-the-art in the middle of the PS2/XBOX era, the "diminishing returns" line is preposterous. Over the course of two console generations, we've seen absolutely enormous gains:
Graphics:
- HD / 4K
- PBR (physically-based rendering + materials)
- Normal maps
- Anti-aliasing
- Massively increased texture and poly budgets
- Much better and more fine-grained animation / mocap
- Larger, more elaborate, and more populated worlds
- Artists / tools: vastly better artistic ability, and vastly better art tools
Everything else:
- Evolved and refined gameplay mechanics
- Better NPC AI
- Better writing
- Better voice acting
- The proliferation of online console gaming
All these things taken together, and exemplified by today's AAA games, make AAA games from the PS2/XBOX era look and feel very outdated. The jump from Metal Gear Solid 3 to MGSV is ridiculous (don't believe me? Go play MGS3 on a PS2 and come back. I guarantee your rose-tinted glasses won't hold up. I remembered it looking and playing so much better, in my mind's eye.). The jump from a PS2 Tomb Raider to a current-gen Tomb Raider, ditto. Gran Turismo 4 to Gran Turismo Sport. Deus Ex: Invisible War to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. FFX to FFXV. Sure, many games from the early-mid-2000s still hold up well and are beloved despite their technical shortcomings, but that's not my point, and it's why I'm focusing on AAA in particular: from a technical perspective, AAA games tend to represent the state of the art at the time of their release, and are good yardsticks for measuring technical progress. I'm not saying AAA games from the PS2/XBOX era are bad; I'm saying that, in general, they tend to look and feel very old.
With that backwards two-gen leap in mind, think ahead two gens: do you think today's AAA console games will seem just as antiquated in ~2030, as PS2/XBOX AAA games seem today? Why or why not? In other words, if you and your spouse give birth to a kid today, and on their 13th birthday you dust off your PS4 Pro or Xbox One X and fire up some of the classics, will your kid be amazed at how much progress has been made since he was born, or will he not see much of a difference?
Personally, I'm not sure what graphical technical advancements are coming in the next decade to rival the impact that things like normal maps and PBR have had. (Anyone know of any?) In terms of screen resolution, for many people, HD at a distance already approaches the resolution limit of the human eye, and 4K clinches it for the vast majority of the population at average TV viewing distances. This will eventually put a cap on texture resolution and poly count, which in today's games are both already pretty high.
On the other hand, I see lots of room for improvement in animation and game mechanics--the sky's the limit. But from a purely visual standpoint, I think I'm starting to agree w/ the "diminishing returns" chorus, which leads me to predict that today's cutting-edge games will still seem pretty damn good in 2030.
(Side note: VR/AR will go through its own interesting evolution, and there are lots of advancements particular to VR/AR on the horizon, but they won't apply to gaming on a 2D screen, which is what I want to focus on for this topic. Flat-screen gaming will still very much be a thing in 2030.)
