Do you remember the days when we only used one term to describe a console’s power? Twenty years ago, what people saw as “bits” were all that mattered and we could tell when one console was better than another simply by looking at the games. One needn’t any more insight than his own eyes to see that Donkey Kong Country was more advanced than the arcade’s Donkey Kong or that Sonic the Hedgehog could do more than Alex Kidd in Miracle World.
Fast forward to today and how do we compare consoles? Jargon. Twenty years ago, people didn’t debate the relative merits of a “Customized 6502 CPU” and a “Television Interface Adaptor Model 1A” because a system’s power could be easily described by marketers as “bits,” and every generation self-evidently doubled the power of the last. But those days, as you certainly know, are gone.
20°
10°
40°
40°
Ad 
40°
The point when graphics stop improving is when imagination or creativity is no longer a factor.
Once game systems and display technology reach the point where looking at your TV is indistinguishable from looking at the real world then we can consider it the end of the line for graphics improvements. But I don't expect to see that in my lifetime.
You have absolutely no basis for that statement, other than falsely believing that Moore's Law will continue on its course (which it won't). OTOH, anyone with any tech knowledge knows that semiconductor fab tech is darn near end-of-line, as far as advancement goes, and that the quality you get from a single movie frame is rendered over several hours, from and entire farm of machines.
No better gfx is a very, VERY real consideration for the future of gaming. Your statement about how you don't expect to see lifelike *real time* renderings in your lifetime are very true. You won't. No one here will.
Yes the die shrink using current materials will soon reach it's limit, but that doesn't mean the end of the line for Moore's law.
There are other materials, processes and technologies that will continue to push performance forward. And some could potentially offer a dramatic jump.
While I don't believe any of Ray Kurzweil's overly optimistic predictions we still have a long way to go before performance improvements stop.
So i guess quantum computers will never see the light of day.
Better graphics does not equal imagination and creativity.
New gameplay mechanics, story, music = imagination and creativity.
We have 4k coming out, 16k is on the horizon (and so on), you have holographic television coming at around the end of the decade (think Star Wars up from the table communications)...with that you have a new avenue with video gaming, you have Virtual reality headsets finally gaining traction, and we even have people like Microsoft finally fooling around with very early style Star Trek The Next Generation Holographic rooms.
....and it's not going to stop there people. Each of these aspects can be upgraded and all of it will require more power.
We have a tendency today (like most present thinkers in past times) that where we are is the pinnacle and we cannot get any better. Wrong.
If we as a human race stop trying to improve, we die...that's a fact. So push the limit on tech, on fusion, on space and don't believe the 'graphics won't get better' or 'we don't have the money'. Only small minded people that created and enslaved us with derivatives want you think that way. Sadly most don't care and will just follow those morons.
Imagine playing a game like Journey where you get to ski through deserts, fly over mountains and see amazing sights all in the one game.
http://i.minus.com/iPFpqlYG...
Oh and adding a shit load of polygons to models and other stuff =P
You can take any current gen game and pick out all of the little flaws it has due to the machines limits and see how this upcoming gen improves on it.
Pop ins, load times, low res textures, stupid ai, fake physics ect.
Till we make the switch to 4k games we won't see a huge graphics leap, but that will likely be the ps5 or later. Likely whenever 4k tvs are reasonably priced.
So, yes!
More so when I played Mario 64 for the first time. That was the graphical leap from one console to another that impressed me the most, ever, in my entire life I've been gaming (30 years old, been gaming for about 24 or 25 of them).
While graphics definitely aren't everything, they're VERY important. There's a big reason why Nintendo has always cared so much about graphics with their main game series (Mario and Zelda). To downplay the importance of graphics in gaming is asinine.
Ok, you admitted you weren't even born when the SNES came out. I was born in the NES era, and I was there when SNES came out after having played with NES for a few years, so I was able to properly appreciate the difference in graphics. Yes, it was a BIG difference for us back then.
Compare this, one of the best looking NES games:
http://cache.tokyotimes.com...
To this, one of the best looking SNES games:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L...
As you can see, it's a world of difference. And games like the first Star Fox, or Super Mario Kart were straight-up impossible to make on the NES hardware.
Consider this: Super Mario World looked leaps and bounds better than any NES game you can think of, and it was just a launch title. Over the years, numerous other games appeared that were much more impressive graphically (like the already mentioned Donkey Kong Country).
Oh, and now that you mention Ninja Turtles... compare TMNT III for NES:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
...with TMNT IV for the SNES:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Not only is there a marked difference in the graphics department (although the NES game admittedly looks superb for the hardware), but there's also a big improvement in gameplay as well, with everything looking more hectic, chaotic and fluid on the SNES game.
Trust me, there definitely was a very big difference in power (and thus, graphics) between the NES and SNES, and yes, EVERYONE noticed and talked about it. Actually, just like the Turtles example I provided above, if you compare two games of the same franchise, one from NES, the other from SNES, the SNES version will look vastly superior all the time, unless the devs of that game were plain lazy.
Graphics do matter, and always have mattered. Yes, on Nintendo consoles, too.
The next big thing that will affect game play (not just visually) is physics in my opinion, Half Life 2 demonstrated the start of it, i reckon Source engine 2 will build on that a ton more. So i'm pretty excited for that.
Also for new ways to play, the Oculus Rift is looking quite interesting.
...
Come 2020, gaming graphics will hardly be better than they are today, for both tech and financial reasons behind making and selling games. There are no tricks, like finfet (if you don't know what that is, you have no justification for disagreeing with me), left up anyone's sleeve to keep semiconductor tech keep rolling affordably forward, and the laws of physics are standing in the way, at this point.
We don't have hovercars yet, do we? At least not affordable or useful ones.
My point is technology doesn't stand still, and limits get broken. Silicon wasn't even supposed to last anywhere near as long as it has, but it has.
New technologies are always being researched, this is just one of many ideas being developed as an alternative to silicon -
http://www.nytimes.com/2013...
when ps4 was announced.
i remember back in around 1995, as a kid, we would imagine games where the grass would be depicted in photorealism in games. at the time grass was mainly depicted as a blocky green floor.
we have come closer to photorealism now... but the grass is mostly a photo/bitmap of a grass pattern simply copy/pasted over a terrain.
yes, you can get the swaying sprites now too, to give the effect of 3d grass, but its hardly photo realism.
so we have come a long way in 20 years, but there are still improvements and advancements that can be made.
im sure within 20 years the grass will actually approach true photo realism in real time
REAL LIFE
runs smooth like REAL LIFE
When there a game that look and runs like real life
no matter if there over a trillion NPC and same size as
the REAL WORLD then Graphic aren't good. But man cannot make was man cannot create.
Limited human perception at one point may stop noticing such improvements but by then we'll be doing things that reality can't match. Don't expect this to happen until hundreds upon hundreds of years of "Nvidia" or "AMD" GPU generations (if we still use GPUs by then).