Next Generation ... Fantasy vs Reality.

[toxic]

Ever since the TGS, I have had to wade through about 500 threads of nonsense. Comparing this rendered screenshot with that rendered screenshot. How this console will be awesome because "look at the detail in his mustache" vs "Oh my god, that is fluid animation".

So, I came upon a thread extolling the wonders of the 360. Look at this great Call of Duty 2 screenie.




Wow. Jaw dropping. I know its a rendered cut scene ... but still, that is pretty impressive stuff.


So, a do a little digging .. and here is some actual IN-GAME stuff.



http://www.cod-infobase.de/?page=new...fd92bbdcdb7b2a

Maybe I am a little harsh. But if I spent 400 dollars on a new machine .. I would HOPE it looked better than that. I don't even know where to begin. I realize this a 4-way screenie and you will lose some graphical detail ... but that is fucking putrid looking after looking at the other screenies. You would think/hope that the 360 could support 64 players with that kind of graphical quality drop.

The only other example I can think of is PDZero. Where you had some nice rendered stuff .. and absolute horrible in-game screenshots. Is this what the next generation has to offer?

[Dyne]

The only other example I can think of is PDZero. Where you had some nice rendered stuff .. and absolute horrible in-game screenshots. Is this what the next generation has to offer?

this is what the 360 will have until the ps3 comes out. the only games that look good wont be out until late next year.

[Bacon McShig]

launch window games don't look impressive OMG UNPRECEDENTEDexclamation points teh ones

[outRider]

Your first screen shot is easily possible on a 360, and will probably be surpassed by this time next year. Just wait, things take time.

[toxic]

So, it's ok for a company to release a platform with sub-par games? That's the industry norm, now? That is acceptable?

[Brand X]

So, it's ok for a company to release a product with sub-par games?

Uhhh.........is it just me or does that not make any sense?

As for those screens, and this topic, I'm not really worried. There will always be games that will blow you away, and there will always be games that are sub par graphically, even on the new consoles. This isn't something new.

Those COD2 images also cannot be compared, one is from an in game 4 person split screen which is obviously from an extremely early version, and one is a reletivly high resolution capture meant to look cinematic.

[outRider]

The time between hardware design, alpha devkits, and retail launch is so short that there just isn't time.

The manufacturer doesn't have time to get alpha and beta kits out, doesn't have time to finish SDKs, and the developers don't have time to get the most out of the machine. Developers typically have 9 months with devkits before the console launches, with alpha kits being fairly useless for the final product.

The only alternative is to finalize hardware, get fairly complete devkits and SDKs with appropriate documentation out, give the developers 3 months or so to learn, give them another 12 months or so to get a good game out. With that kind of schedule, the 360 would be launching in the summer of 2006 for example.

[Bacon McShig]

So, it's ok for a company to release a platform with sub-par games? That's the industry norm, now? That is acceptable?

PS2 did it and look how it turned out.

[voltz]

CGI screens will always look better then in-game shots just because they're cut sales and eye candy. We won't be seeing games look anywhere near as good up till the next 30 years down the road when developers learn about putting curves in polys on machines running with 16million bit processors.

[mollipen]

I have to be honest, I think even the very first pic in this thread, the "supposed quality" pic, is pretty lackluster.