When Did Last Gen Reach its Limit?

[JustTheOtherGuy]

I was just wondering what people thought was the point that PS3, X-Box 360, and even the Wii reached what was possible for the systems to handle reasonably.
In my opinion, the cross platform titles started to show their limits around 2010-2011(though I could be completely wrong). By this I mean that games would have frame rate that were below 30 fps, and not even native 720p. Exclusives have gone on longer, as even 2013's The Last of Us was incredible for the aged hardware. I guess they technically haven't reached their limit, but....you know.
I don't mean to cause arguments, but at what point do you think that the consoles started to show their age?

 

[Foxi4]

I think that the cut-off point was around 2012 in general. Since then, games had to cut corners wherever it was possible to remain playable and even games like The Last Of Us had to resort to tricks to make maps seem grander than they actually were.

 

[mightymuffy]

This was quite possibly the first time in recent generations where the limits were 'reached' - and Foxi's pretty much bang on the mark in my opinion (maybe late 2011).
Wii however, well that thing showed its age at launch date . But seriously your estimation of late 2010-2011 would be close regarding the Wii - and around 12-18 months later for the other 2... I'm sure some snobby pedantic dev could probably laugh and say they could scrounge another 2.5% out or something, but what's the point....
More interesting in my opinion will be how long before the current gen reaches its limits: Xbox One in particular! I'm 99.9% sure it'll be less time than it took to get the 360 screaming for breath. Course, this might depend on the whole cloud thing MS are waffling on about and how much of it you believe.... could theoretically blur the lines I suppose...

 

[FAST6191]

They have yet to http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

However you did say reasonably so I can not quite leave it at that.

It is something of a spectrum as well -- EA, ID and Ubisoft could push things harder than the smaller devs so they could not be quite so competitive for as long. Equally we are going to have to figure out what was a bad port, what was just laziness, what was the consoles holding back the PC, what was PC development pulling ahead of consoles and what were other things that might also trouble things here.

For me the first Risen game was probably the time I really noticed it (that would be early 2009 then). However that was almost certainly a bad port, doing the "pics or it did not happen" bit
http://www.videogameszone.de/Risen-...-und-Xbox-360-Version-696485/galerie/1201011/

Equally when "buy in Unreal" exists it can blur lines more. Some devs pushed engines far, I saw a good presentation dealing with licensed games where one of the developers on the Tron game detailed what they had done to the bought in engine. Similarly many devs said screw the arms race and went in for good art instead, Deadly Premonition's rise from running joke to cult classic probably says a lot there.

 

[tbgtbg]

Wii, pretty much right away
360, somewhere between 2010 and 2012
PS3, not sure it really did

 

[JustTheOtherGuy]

I stand by my 2010-2011 estimate in some regards, but maybe more towards late 2011, with games like Skyrim, L.A. Noire, Assassins Creed(Revelations maybe?), etc. which I thought had some slowdowns/graphical limitations that showed that the power of the system was not as unlimited as I expected.

This was quite possibly the first time in recent generations where the limits were 'reached' - and Foxi's pretty much bang on the mark in my opinion (maybe late 2011).
Wii however, well that thing showed its age at launch date . But seriously your estimation of late 2010-2011 would be close regarding the Wii - and around 12-18 months later for the other 2... I'm sure some snobby pedantic dev could probably laugh and say they could scrounge another 2.5% out or something, but what's the point....
More interesting in my opinion will be how long before the current gen reaches its limits: Xbox One in particular! I'm 99.9% sure it'll be less time than it took to get the 360 screaming for breath. Course, this might depend on the whole cloud thing MS are waffling on about and how much of it you believe.... could theoretically blur the lines I suppose...

The Xbox One will reach its limit within 4 years, since it already cannot achieve consistent framerate/1080p in many games. I don't mean to hate on it, but Microsoft should have spent the resources from Kinect 2 on the hardware that runs games, not watching the players. PS4 has its priorities(mostly) straight

 

[Gahars]

Never. These things have limitless potential as doorstops and paper weights for years to come.

 

[Taleweaver]

The wii reached its limit when the motion hype died away.

Can't say much of the 360 or PS3 as I don't follow them as much. I'd say "when the difference with it and PC's became too apparent"...but I can't say a definite time on that.

 

[mightymuffy]

The Xbox One will reach its limit within 4 years, since it already cannot achieve consistent framerate/1080p in many games. I don't mean to hate on it, but Microsoft should have spent the resources from Kinect 2 on the hardware that runs games, not watching the players. PS4 has its priorities(mostly) straight

First wave software man.... I'll agree with pretty much everything else you said of course, but consistent framerate at this stage in its life is to be expected, and also happens often on PS4 at the moment too... It's true developers will need less time to get accustomed to either machine as they're basically PCs now, but were a dev to re-release a launch game in 12 months time the difference would be easy to see. Both machines are slightly (gonna borrow Foxi's word here ) --underwhelming-- though, you can build a PC tower for the same price as the Xbone that can easily outperform it (and roughly match performance regarding the PS4) which has never happened at launch before. So yeah, certainly less time before they're maxed out methinks...