we are at the start of the gen. who are you to tell what's possible or not? did you look at uncharted 1 and went, "oh this can improve but certainly not a lot and without sacrifices..." and guess what uc2 and 3 looked like. they certainly did not sacrifice anything.
what...most games i played were 720p. i don't know what kind of games you were playing...gran turismo 6 even pushed for 1280x1080 resolution.
Some games were upscaled to 720p though. That's different. Again, yes, it's expected to have improvements. Developers will find ways to improve their engines, Sony and Microsoft will optimize the Operating Systems for both consoles, new optimizations techniques will be found, but there are still limits. I didn't say "not a lot" and, if you understood that, I'm sorry if I didn't express what I meant in the best way. I just meant you can't go beyond what the hardware is capable. For example, you know that they won't be able to push graphics and stay at 60 fps because of hardware limitations, right? They can choose to stay at 60 fps, but it wouldn't be possible to get an open-world Uncharted 4 on the same level. You can get a linear game, though. That's a good compromise for a game in that franchise.
Please don't think I'm trying to do a platform war here, it's just an example: my current PC is from 2012 and its superior in terms of hardware compared to Xbox One and PS4. But I already plan an upgrade next year, because I know it won't be able to handle games at max soon. Also, I know it's currently easier to code to the metal in consoles (which is why it's better to optimize games in consoles now), but again, you can't go beyond what the hardware lets you.
I still plan to buy a PS4 and I love that I'll be able to play Uncharted 4 like Naughty Dog is promising. It's brilliant. But I plan to buy it knowing about its limits. I hope devs can push it to show impressive games visually, but I know I can't expect 1080p all the time and, even though I hoped for that before the consoles were announced, it doesn't mean I'll be disappointed at devs working with the hardware they got and call them incompetents.
Oh, and to be clear, I didn't rule out Witcher 3 in 1080p. They might be able to do that, since they still have months of optimization. But we need to see what graphical effects will be enabled and disabled. That's what I meant when I said before that optimization sometimes also means having to reduce or disable effects.
