Law of Diminishing Returns?

With a new console generation, is the expectation of a huge graphics jump. This time… that’s not really the case, which begs the question… Are we hitting the Law of Diminishing Returns on consoles? The Law of Diminishing Returns can be seen in almost everything, when you spend or improve so much that the gains become smaller and smaller. This is usually a topic of debate, and with every topic of debate, there are 2 sides to the issue, and I’ll try to present both sides equally.

I’ll start with why people believe we hit the wall with the advent of the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s quite hard to tell the difference between some of the games and improvements for games like BF4 and AC4 are kind of minor. Unless you have a direct comparison, it can be hard to tell the difference between the games. Spec wise, none of the new consoles are really running in new resolutions: some games on the PS3 and 360 can run in native 1080p, so why is it impressive that the new consoles can? 720p ->1080p is a much smaller jump than from SD -> HD. Another argument is more fundamental: the fact that games are expensive to make. Polygon making, texture designing, etc., it’s an expensive and hard thing to do. To make better looking games, they will have to put more effort than ever, and that was the case even with last generation.

Next is the other side of the argument, why we haven’t hit the law of diminishing returns on the new generation of consoles. The new consoles have a bunch of new stuff that you can easily see, with higher quality textures, better lighting, and just more effects in general that the older consoles couldn’t do and it really looks snazzy. Look at Forza 5 vs Forza 4, there’s a huge difference in that. The problem with these comparisons is that they are comparing games based on the same engine, and games that are built ground up for the new consoles, look so much better. Another aspect, is this generation is much easier to develop for, so in the future, we might see games that absolutely blows away the current gen stuff while not being that much more expensive. Development will be complicated, but with the easier to use tools, it might be easier than ever to make great looking games and it’ll help alleviate the bubble in graphics we have now.

Now that I’ve presented both sides of the argument, what do I think? I think it’s a Yes and a No. I believe that there’s a lot to go, but for most games on consoles we see, we essentially have but every mobile computing gaming platform has a long time before we get anywhere near this theoretical wall. It’s really a case by case issue: games look great now no matter how you look at it, and some games will make use of the new technologies, but others it’ll be really hard to tell. Nintendo has a good idea when they release a console with old technology: it’s cheaper and easier to develop for, and games still look great. Even last generation, with the advent of HD, the launch titles looked quite similar to their PS2 counterparts. Games will look better, that’s a fact. But some will look much much better, while others will look pretty similar. 2D games like platformers and Puzzle games hit a wall long time ago, you won’t find any improvement there… but for more graphically intensive games like shooters and racers, it’s quite a big difference.