Neither the 360 or PS3 are Maxed Out

RevoltTech Writes:

Every time a new game is announced, or comes close to release, developers fan the flames of hype in many ways. One of the most common ways being the phrase, “We have maxed out the (insert console here)”. Fans go crazy at what possibilities this could bring, and developers enjoy the extra hype until the claim gets shot down in a few months by a different developer with a new game.

[writersblock]

"Maxed Out" is a hype term

[Nitrowolf2]

Pretty much. We keep hearing "Max Out" and yet every year we keep getting games that look and perform better. I guess it really depends though. A developer will say that they have maxed out a console and it may be true, but i think they mean by what ever engine/tool that they are using is maxed out, they can't do anymore with it. idk thats what i think, cause like i said we keep hearing this but when a sequel comes out it looks/performs better then before, but that's because they have upgraded their own tools.

Edited:

lol i just read the article, so i wasn't that far off when they were referring it to as resources.

here is ND saying UC2 maxed out the PS3
http://www.joystiq.com/2009...

and yet Number 3 looks better

[DarthRevan]

Yeah. Once its truly, 100% maxed out it basically means we're like 2 years into the next console generation. I can imagine the PS2 is maxed out by now since they kept making games for it. But not the PS3 or 360, next gen consoles have architectural sophistication enough that it can always be pushed a little bit further

[AAACE5]

That's a bold term to put on N4G! Here we go...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls....

...LLLET'S GET READY TO RUMBLEEE!!!...

[Ratchet510]

sony has no limit because the power is unpredictable not even pc can see the true power of sony. 360 max is mass effect 3.

[Nitrowolf2]

@ Gwave
Although it's Multiplat, Crysis 2 seems to be far better in terms of graphics then Cod and prob. Gears. Crysis 2 is prob the best FPS for 360 when it comes the graphics.

Idk for me to see Devs make a game on 360 look like that, just shows that if you have the right tools you can make it work.

[kancerkid]

Some people thing that as soon as a console is maxed out, the next generation should be around the corner.

I think that the developers should work with the maxed out consoles for long periods of time to make games that truly take advantage of what each console has to offer instead of constantly being in this race to max them out and then release a new console.

[rroded]

so why do 360 exclusives look so much worst? and always end up laggy and bug ridden like fable 2 or 3 or gears 1 or 2?
sure halo was rock solid but its graphics are at best last gen...
while the ps3 puts out the best looking games and whats more there all rock solid gameplay wise...

[Nitrowolf2]

@RROD

this has nothing to do with which console has the better game over the other. It just has to do whether or not the system is Maxed out yet. Obviously the PS3 produces better games, but that does not make the 360 maxed out.

Saying the 360 isn't maxed out yet does not mean that it can produce top notch PS3 quality games, it just means that it can do better games then what it (360) already has.

[SaberEdge]

"However, 360 games definitely seem maxed out. We have yet to see any 360 game surpass the graphics of CoD or Gears 2. The PS3, on the other hand, continues to outdo itself year after year."

Gwave, it might seem like that to you, but I have seen improvement in 360 games. Gears of War 3 has a whole dynamic lighting engine that was completely absent in Gears 2. Fable 3 looks a lot better than Fable 2. Alan Wake was probably the best looking 360 game I had played up to that point.

The other problem is that Microsoft needs to get off its butt and invest in more first party talent. They need more of that if they want to continue to push their console to its full potential.

[Headquarters11]

M$ has yet to release a game that looks as good as Uncharted 1. I'd say the 360 is pretty maxed out lol.

[Biggest]

Using Alan Wake and Halo: Reach (I know Halo hasn't come up yet, but in case it does) is counter productive to the point. Both of those games used methods of illusion to look better than other games like them. Games like Red Dead Redemption were more visually and technically impressive on the 360 than Alan Wake. Art direction can always improve the look of a game for people that enjoy that type of art. The PS3 and 360 are machines that have no sense of style or art. They do what the programmers tell them to. The programmers have shown over time that they can find more room to work with on the PS3. The programmers have shown that they are having trouble finding more room to work with on the 360.

[CWMR]

No, Alan Wake looks good because of all the detail packed into every environment. When you go into any building there are all these little touches that make it seem believable. The lighting is also a standout feature. The amount of real time shadows and lights playing across the environments at many points surpassed anything I had seen in a console game before.

[dantesparda]

^^^^^^^

really? like what?

[ChrisW]

Ratchet510, "sony has no limit because the power is unpredictable not even pc can see the true power of sony."

What? No console can run a game like Battlefield Bad Company 2 at CSAA x32, Anisotrophic Filters x16, and in 3D with a minimum of 1920x1080 at 120Mhz refresh rate and still maintain at least 60fps. Or any game that has better graphics than BFBC2.

Now don't get me wrong, the Cell is a piece of technical geniousness... But an up-to-date PC is going to be better, albeit at about 5Xs the price of a PS3, but better.

Thus is why you have 20+ disagrees.

[RedDragan]

No, Alan Wake looks good because of all the detail packed into every environment. When you go into any building there are all these little touches that make it seem believable. The lighting is also a standout feature. The amount of real time shadows and lights playing across the environments at many points surpassed anything I had seen in a console game before.

--------------

Then you obviously haven't seen a single PS3 or PC game before!

Alan Wake is not impressive graphically.

[Immortal321]

Maybe so, but saying the 360 isn't maxed out seems to be a fanboy statement. Why, the 360 games visually and physically benchmark are not that far from it's multiplatform games. The benchmark for the 360 exclusive seems to be on par with multiplat games. This happens year after year, and to tell you the truth, there are barely any progression from the 360 camp.

How do I know? well the 360fanboy are sick and tired of hearing ps3>>>>360 and when its time for comparisons they say that statement over and over again.

GAMEPLAY OVER GRAPHICS!

I say gameplay is a given, its the graphics that are the treats.

[ProjectVulcan]

Alan Wake was extremely low resolution, had a fair bit of screentearing and slowdown.

Im sorry i just cant be impressed by a game on a HD console that runs 960 x 544 - that is a pitiful 522k pixels. Thats only 55 percent of a proper 720p game like Uncharted or Gears of war! Unimpressive. It clearly damaged fine detail having to upscale the game massively, also the geometry on many parts of the game along with its textures looked very poor on a full HDTV (the game literally has NO texture filtering), to be expected when its running closer to SD resolution than HD!

Boggles the mind when people talk about alan wake as a graphical triumph. It looked badly aged and it played aged. The choice to create a completely dynamic forward rendering lighting system on this generation of consoles is usually a huge mistake because the resources required are massive. Hence Alan Wake barely rendering above SD and yet still struggling to maintain 30 frames a second without tearing.

Only PC games should use fully dynamic lighting engines (like crysis 1), until the next generation of consoles appear. The smartest developers know that with limited resources a mix of canned and deferred dynamic lighting gives by far the best performance for quality, as seen in killzone 2, uncharted 2, upcoming crysis 2 etc.

'Maxing out' a console is a buzz phrase but should still represent the ability of a developer to get the very best possible out of limited console hardware with the tools then available. Very few games really get the best out of a console at the time they launch, only a handful on PS3 and 360 have really taken advantage of the hardware to the fullest extent possible at their release.

[Active Reload]

@Nitrowolf
"Although it's Multiplat, Crysis 2 seems to be far better in terms of graphics then Cod and prob. Gears. Crysis 2 is prob the best FPS for 360 when it comes the graphics"

Don't even mention Gears, cause apparently you haven't seen Gears 3 to make such a dumb comment.

[doa766]

if the 360 is not maxed how do you explain:

-that the best looking exclusive on the 360 is still Gears of War 2 that's more than 2 years old?

-that Ninja Theory's "Enslaved" looks and performs worse on both consoles than the same company's 4 year old PS3 exclusive "Heavenly Sword"

-that PS3 ups the bar every few months by releasing a new graphical king (first Uncharted 1, then Metal Gear 4, Killzone 2, Uncharted 2, God of War 3) and the 360 haven't done that for years?

the 360 is maxed out and the PS3 is far from it

[plenty a tool]

lol, at the idiots.

reason why no-one is pushing the 360 to it's full potential = no 1st party devs! 3rd parys dont really bother!

but the most important thing to consider is this: there is no console straining ENGINES being created ESPECIALLY for the 360!! i know fanboys like gwave and co choose to ignore this, but you have to face the facts.

and dont even get me started on gears, the unreal3 engine is nearly 6 years old!!! does that not make you think about things??

the 360 you could say is primarily a console of 3rd party games, hence no optimised-to-the-max engines crafted for it

[IcarusOne]

@ Vulcan:
I see what you're saying, but by that logic, given the choice between a Michael Bay movie shot on HD and a Coen Bros or Scorcese movie shot on 16mm, you would choose the one with the "better tech specs." I'm always wary of these comparisons because artistry doesn't come from technical power, it comes from limitations.

I do think the 360 is approaching maxed out if it's not there already, but most of my favorite games from the last two years have been multiplats, with Arkham and RDR at the forefront. PS3 certainly has the graphics department locked down, but pretty comes a distant second to fun for me. And no PS3 exclusives, with the exception of inFamous, have topped the thrill of being Batman or John Marsden.

[ProjectVulcan]

No IcarusOne, thats clearly not what i said at all, mainly because games are not movies and movies are not games...

Its blindingly obvious a film can be near timeless although a game cannot hide its age from technical advances. Probably why all this talk of graphics is meaningless as soon as a new generation appears or you play on a modern PC.

Many of the former games that are graphics fests are exposed as shallow and not nearly as good as you remember then should you go back to play them after several years, because their technology has aged. If that is the primary thing you remember playing them for then you will be disappointed.

[Biggest]

"lol, at the idiots.

reason why no-one is pushing the 360 to it's full potential = no 1st party devs! 3rd parys dont really bother!

but the most important thing to consider is this: there is no console straining ENGINES being created ESPECIALLY for the 360!! i know fanboys like gwave and co choose to ignore this, but you have to face the facts.

and dont even get me started on gears, the unreal3 engine is nearly 6 years old!!! does that not make you think about things??

the 360 you could say is primarily a console of 3rd party games, hence no optimised-to-the-max engines crafted for it"

You'd think that games made for the 360 only would find a way to "maximize" the system. Aren't Halo 3, Halo: OTSD, and Halo: Reach made for (and I mean ONLY for) the 360? Wasn't Alan Wake made for (and I mean ONLY for) the 360? Aren't Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3 made for (you know what I mean) the 360? Even if Gears uses an engine that was meant to be middleware, I would have figured that it could have been tweaked into a 360 only engine after all these years. They make enough money off of the game to attempt an increase in graphical power, right? They sure talk about the games as if they're graphical landmarks, right? One of the biggest complaints about the PS3 was and is the difficulty in programming. The 360 was praised for its ease. Somehow the difficult platform is constantly being mastered and refined by developers. The praise-worthy ease offered by the 360 is too confusing to master all of a sudden?

[BloodyNapkin]

@plenty a tool, lol at this idiot.

Halo Reach engine was strictly designed for the 360,and we see how well that turned out. Just face it you will never see big jumps in graphics on the 360, sure they will squeeze this or that out of it. But they will always just do major trade off instead of finding unused power of the 360.

And yes the UE3 engine is old the first release anyways, but UE3 engine for the 360 is updated for the 360 to take the best advantage of the system. And actually UE3 engine still has alot of code from the original unreal engine. Epic has never made a brand new engine since the aunch of the unreal engine, it always has been a updated engine with some decent overhauling.

[el zorro]

Wow some of you are really ignorant on this subject.

First of all Halo Reach looks great. Quit acting like it is some pathetic looking game because it is clearly not. It looks much better than most multiplatform games and it looks better than most PS3 exclusives. The fact that it might not quite live up to a couple of the very best PS3 exclusives means nothing in the big picture.

I still think Halo Reach is doing some things that it isn't being recognized for which explains why it doesn't look quite as good as the best PS3 exclusives. You have to realize that Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 are much more linear and they control where they want you to go to a much higher degree than Halo Reach.

You say "face it you will never see big jumps on the 360" which is ironic because Gears of War 3 shows a bigger leap over its predecessor than any upcoming PS3 game. Killzone 3 looks pretty much like Killzone 2, Uncharted 3 looks pretty much like Uncharted 2, LBP2 looks pretty much the same as LBP, well you get my point.

A whole major area of Gears of War 3 on the other hand has been completely overhauled: the lighting. Going from having no real dynamic lights and shadows to having a full blown dynamic lighting engine is a bigger upgrade than anything any PS3 game has got.

[N4g_null]

Seriously? You guys should educate your self on what takes power and what doesn't your sounding like cave men throwing chicken bones.

No offense to those who do throw chicken bones.

To know if some thing is maxed out you need to know the specs of a scene. How many lights the resolution of texture true polygon count how efficient the culling is the effects verses frame rate etc.

The only thing you can see is the art. You know what you like and don't.

Basicly most games are maxed out to a certain threshold. Other wise they would all run 1frame a second just to impress you.

If you truly believe ps3 games can't run on a 2007 or 2006 pc then you are a fool. These games don't have excessive lighting, polygon counts, shaders that would justify those comments. Yet they do have different types of artist.

Plus I don't know many ms projects that where given as much time to make great engines or at least find a artistic look that would impress.

Seriously epic has never been a true power house graphically, bungie never was known for their engines. Yet their concept art was ace.

Crytek and id are the powe houses and their games are coming and once other 3rd parties get these tools uncharted might join tomb raider as a technical marvel. All Sony exclusives have is great art which can and will be over come.

Please don't bring up mg4. That just proves you don't under stand the tech and your looking at hype or character design.

Hell metal gear on the 3ds is way more impressive.

Until there is a true over kill hardware where developers are just cramming stuff on screen because they got so much extra power you can't really say some thing is maxed out more when it is obviously struggling.

The artificial hype in the cell is only going to get worst as developers squeeze less and less from it and rely on art.

So Sony and it's fans need to walk away from the tech battle. There is nothing close to what crytek and id has engine wise on consoles.

Even snes gamers had sense enough to just say they like the art rather the power.

In a very similar situation. The 3ds is coming and tech wise it is frigging amazing. No matter what the psp2 does it won't be in 3d. Out of no where nintendo has a handheld that looks like an hd console. So believe me when I say Sony doesn't want to rely on tech that will get erased for sure next gen.

[mastiffchild]

It's a BS concept. My mate is an amateur coder whop messes with old systems for a giggle(odd chap) and the things he gets out of ancient stuff like his ZX81 is WAY beyond anything I saw when I had one and was using software made by the best minds in the business at the time!

Point is we're used to the easy , and lazy, way forward of letting the new tech do the work for us and as a result we're left with systems that have never really been pushed as far as they could have been. Is my mate better than those who coded for his old machinery at the time? No, no he isn't it's just they never had the time on THAT tech to "max it out" and never do. I hate the term and you can tell it's bollox by games like GOW2 on the PS2 that came late in it's cycle as top console and show that there's clearly more under the hood than we'll ever get to witness.

With consoles I suppose it reaches a point where they get a little TOO far behind the PC and the companies have always felt they HAVE to move on to keep up and to compete with each other. All it means is these consoles never get to show everything they can do, or could, have done and sometimes it just feels a bit of a wasteful way of operating as an industry-even though I'm a sucker for a glossy piece of new tech as the next geek!

Maxed out though? Seriously, bollox.

[AAACE5]

Agreed Mastiffchild...

In the past consoles started to show their age, but with these newer consoles, I feel that they could possibly stick around longer. I believe Sony and MS realize this as well which is why they aren't trying to push out new hardware. The games look good and are fun.

I would much more enjoy fun games as opposed to having decent games with the best graphics. I did that with the original Xbox and reverted back to Ps2 because it had a lot of fun games on it! Then slowly eased back to the xbox when better games showed up.

[CameronL99]

Its not a hype term, if you know anything about computer programming or game engines, or processes in coding, then you'd know that if you do things a certain "way" which is inefficient, then you're going to max out the console based upon your current processing of code. Whereas if you process the code different next time, or you have a more efficiently run game engine (as you all know game engines keep getting updated to newer more efficient versions ie. Unreal Engine 3) then you'll squeeze more out of the hardware, that's the way games work, and its why they have a tendency to look BETTER with time and not worse given the same developer but with better tools to use.

[N4g_null]

So the most efficient way to do 3d games is to make doom clones. It's not about that it's a give and take that gamers need to understand.

Back in the day we knew the biggest sprite size every one was fine with it and Devs did the best they could.

Now games are not bought simply because they are not the best tech. That is bad for gaming if it's truly the best they could do and it's still fun.

This is why the pc debate always pops up. This is the main reason so many pc gamers missed out on console gaming.

It's like an ignorant form of elitism. Then you all get mad when the tricks are not carried over to other games. Try gowAr graphics in a fps and it won't work.

Updating an shine with design flaws will not help.

It's like asking Maya to be zbrush. If you remember the artisan brush then you know my pain lol. Some engines don't solve problems they add features like ut3.

I think we have one more gen before we can say let's wait ten years for another console. With then new engines and more headroom things should get better v

[Strikepackage Bravo]

whats odd is the only time I hear the term Maxed out used any more is if its some Sony owned developer, talking trash to hype up his game, or Sony fanboys claiming 360 is Maxed out and thus cannot hang with PS3.

[Chromer]

Only time I see you post is when you are trying to troll anything Sony related. Give it a rest kid.

[JBaby343]

^^ If you've been here for any length of time you know that's about right for strikepackage. He's always been like that. He just can't help himself the poor soul. You should've been here before when there were 20 Sony Fail Articles a day to watch him and the others troll. Now that the tables have turned their comments have decreased like their bubble counts. You'll notice they never site examples or facts though. For an example of that I refer you to his comment just above.

[DaTruth]

Now they troll about Sony fanboys being the worst or pose as PC fanboys in Ps3 articles!

Ontopic: I played Hero of Sparta on the PSP recently and the framerates and loading are atrocious, but are we to believe that HoS maxed out the PSP and it can't run it, but Gow, a 1000 times graphically greater game runs flawlessly on the PSP.

It all comes down to the developers, whether less capable or lesser tools or just lazy!

[JsonHenry]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

[WildArmed]

Yeah, no kidding.

I can write a code that'll use all of the ps3's SPU n GPU to 100% in just doing 1+1..
But that's called writting a super shitty code.

Anyone can use 100% of the ps3, even when playing PacMan.
It's about about optimizing your code.
There are some AMAZING devs that know how to optimize their codes, I salute them.

Then there are others, who don't even try and get their games running 'barely' even though everything they are dong is sub-standard compared to many other games.

Everyone uses the term as it's (from a technical standpoint) correct, they are running their engine on the ps3 by maxing out all they can.
So it's far from a lie, it's just a way to get more gamers excited about it.
people who aren't willing look deeper into wth they just said will still be hella confused when their next games comes out and it looks better and plays better.
and once again, the devs will say 'console X is MAXED OUT'

[MNicholas]

Both console's GPUs have been maxed out for years. The 360's GPU, Xenos, was maxed out almost since launch and the PS3's GPU, RSX, was maxed out since Uncharted 1.

The reason the PS3's graphics have continued to improve while the 360's have not is because of the Cell processor.

Tests by IBM have shown that in some graphics tasks, the Cell is 5-10x faster than current console GPUs.

That's why the best graphics on the PS3 provide an unprecedented level of detail, shading, scale, and CGI quality post-processing.

[the_best_player]

PS3 Maxed out: No
360 Maxed out: Yes

[Workshyskiver]

PS3 Maxed out: No
DVD Maxed out: Yes

[SonyPS360]

First party support. The Ps3 is closer to being maxed out than the 360.

The 360 still needs to be pushed because M$ still need to invest in some first party support for it.

Sony fantards will disagree, but it's fact.

[gta2800]

I think the 360 is maxed out. It came out almost 2 years before the PS3, it's easier to develop for and all devs are really familiar with the hardware especially the first party developers....yet 360 has no exclusives that match PS3's top exclusives.

[DarthRevan]

Thats what I like about PC's. Upgrade every few years and you can keep running the best graphics

[snoopgg]

thats the very thing I hate about pc gaming, is always having to upgrade to run the newer games. I stopped playing pc games because of this.

[FAGOL]

yep hundreds of pounds wasted every year for hardware not software. When I used to game on the PC it was the AGP to PCI-E transition stage. My god I had to spend a fortune to keep up. Plus alot of exclusives are on the consoles. I gave in to console gaming.

[-Alpha]

You don't NEED to upgrade constantly. Most PC games still look better without having to have the latest technology.

The PC has best of what makes both consoles so great: better graphics and better online, not to mention mods, free DLC, cheaper price for games, etc.

Gotta love PC gaming. I still love my console gaming and I'm primarily a console gamer for three reasons: exclusives, laziness to get a decent PC, and local Multiplayer. But the PC really doesn't get as much credit as it deserves around here

[nickjkl]

i noticed you say pc games look better without having to upgrade the way you say it makes it seem like every pc can run every pc game at above console levels just because its a pc

i also noticed you bring up everything that puts pc gaming in a favorable light but bring up none of its bad points

another thing you say better online which consists of connecting people together through the internet exactly how does the pc do this better when it does the same thing a console owner can do chat and play online games

[N4g_null]

Nick there are laptops the price if a ps3 that can run devil may cry and sf4 better than a ps3.

No hd game supports cuda or directs 11 most pcs games don't either. So pc development is tied to direct x 9 levels because of consoles.

This means if you have a 6 year old direct x 9 card with as much ram as a ps3 and a old core duo with 4 gigs of ram or less if you run xp still you will be fine.

Yet no one makes pc exclusives hardly any more.

Oh yah how is pc online better? Free content hosted by the actualy gamers and if a game server shuts down you can simply start your own and it's free and support various com protocols. You can also get the full benefit of your network thinks to updatable hardware that is cheaper due to competition.

I mean HDTV and an hd console is way more than pc gaming. It runs a lot better if you stop surfing porn and torrents with it.

[ME1989]

I like how what DarthRevan said is actually fact, yet still gets disagrees. This shows you the incessant fanboyism on this site.

I'm no PC elitist, actually I never game on my computer, only my 360 and PS3, but it's the honest truth. PCs have yet to be bested by a console. Can't really do anything about that.

Edit: @snoopgg, to be fair, all you have to do is probably upgrade the video card maybe once every couple years, and the CPU will last even longer than that if you get a good one...that's not expensive in the slightest.

[GodofSackboy]

No but the point is that we f-ckin get that PCs are better, literally every single article remotely related to console graphics will always get a few PC fanboys in the comments, using their gay perfect grammar, "Oh yes, PC is by far the better choice." Then they say all this sh-t about complicated stuff like direct x that nobody understands or cares about, but they don't realise that they paid like £5,000 for their "gaming rig" (WTF?) and nobody apart from gay boys cares about games that much to spend so much. We f-ckin understand that PCs are better, OK? The point is that no normal people use PCs for gaming, they use them for Work, Facebook, homework etc. PCs just don't have the...fun-ness that consoles have

[newhumanbreed]

....

[SonyPS360]

His point is that the Ps3 fanboys bang on about how a 5 year old console is pushing the technical boundries, when its hardware had already been surpassed before it was even released.

PC leads in terms of power, not the 360 or Ps3.

[BrianG]

I suppose I can agree when it comes to resolution, fps, all that stuff, PC can do it better. But you should realize that PS3 games are looking amazing, especially the exclusives like God of War and Uncharted series as well as the Killzone series. These games are constantly improving while PC gamers still crown Crysis as the king, how old is that game now?

Are PC developers getting lazier? Worse? Just not caring? Shouldn't the latest game out be the King? I have nothing against PC gaming, just trying to show a different light on the subject. They have so much RAM and CPU, GPU, power and they still can't surpass crysis.

Also PC's can play most games pretty good, but how much to you need to spend to play Crysis on the highest settings? Which seems to be the game of choice for PC gamers. Even moderate settings, I bet it comes to over $299. I realize highest settings aren't a must for some, but any half decent PC is gonna run over 300 bucks.

EDIT: Also realize the "boundaries" being pushed are for console gaming. Yes the PS3 has been pushing boundaries on what hasn't been done before on consoles. Are you going to use that same argument when a cell phone is as powerful as a super computer? "Well, its been done 200 years ago on PC" It is impressive for consoles because they are not upgradeable in the same sense as the PC.

[N4g_null]

Sorry but rage and zbrush are king. Your stuck in 2006. We are not even using the 400 cores that come on these cards right now.

You know it's maxed out when the game can not get above 15-30 frames a second or the input lags.

It's just hard to go backwards frame rate wise that's all.

It's not impressive because it's the norm. Only people who are new to it are impressed. It's like watching cave men watch fire for the first time.

[Deathstroke]

The 360 is obviously maxed out. Not one game on that console matches the first Uncharted. Then you have other PS3 exclusives like Uncharted 2 & Killzone 2 that look even better than that. So the 360 is either maxed out or Sony has some exclusive contract with devs that says only the PS3 can have the best looking games.

[DarthRevan]

Its not always looks. Though PS3 games look better 98% of the time, the 36 usually manages to get about the same level after a year or so.

The PS3 has an advantage with the cell architecture but the point is neither console is maxed out

[MysticStrummer]

"The 360 usually manages to get about the same level after a year or so." ...except not really.

[Ratchet510]

they said the 360 cant handle infamous 2 lol if you dont believe me you can google, infamous 2 tested on 360 and pc. people say pc stronger then ps3 but when i play COD Black ops there is a lot of lag but not as much as 360.

[Nitrowolf2]

Lag doesn't have anything to do with it blame the crappy P2P and not having dedicated servers for that game.

Also i keep hearing people go like "how do they know (insert PS3 Exclusive) doesn't work on 360 if they havn't tried it yet?"

Can you please show me a 360 game that has graphics on Par? I keep hearing people saying that and yet i have not seen a single 360 game developed that can produce similarty. It's funny then because pretty much people are saying that there are better devs for PS3 then 360, if they keep saying that these games should be possible. Why havn't we seen one yet???

[Arup02]

hahahahahahaha You're saying that PS3 is stronger than a high end PC? LOL FAIL.

[SaberEdge]

Nitrowolf2, you're crazy if you don't think that Microsoft's small amount of first party studios is largely to blame. I don't see any developer under the Microsoft umbrella that I really expect will suddenly start pumping out bleeding edge graphics. The only way that will happen is if Microsoft gets some new studios.

If you took Guerrilla, SSM and Naughty Dog away from Sony people would be saying "why are the graphics on the PS3 lagging behind".

A couple developers can make all the difference.

[jsc249jobal]

I am a former 360 owner and a current ps3/pc gamer and love them both for gaming. PC has titles it's much better to play on and the ps3 has titles that feel better to play on etc etc

But I digress, I googled "infamous 2 tested on 360 and pc" and found 2-3 articles where different developers/PR people at Sucker Punch made claims about what could and could not be done on other consoles, but please, post a link showing fact that you so boldly claimed or just stfu.

Sincerely,
Gamer tired of retards ruining debate forums

[SonyPS360]

That's because your PC is a joke. :)

[sickbird]

duh

[ct03]

"A game could be putting 100% load on both the CPU and Proccessor [sic] at all times"

Wow, just wow. No wonder the author of this article is not mentioned by name.

Any game that's not 1080p60 has maxed out the hardware. Plain and simple.

[Ben Dover]

Maxed out? No.. but the graphical power between the two consoles is becoming bigger and bigger. Where the 360 still needs to show a game as good as Uncharted 1, the PS3 is moving on and raises the bar even more...

[CWMR]

Alan Wake looks better than Uncharted 1. So does Gears 2.

[Ben Dover]

Kindly look here and scroll down where it compares them:

http://kineticninja.blogspo...

You have been served.

[baodeus]

then can you kindly compare any pictures of UC1, KZ2, GoW3, UC2 or what ever on PS3 to RE5:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbo...
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbo...
http://image.com.com/gamesp...
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbo...
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbo...

Resident Evil 5 graphic (lighting, texture even up close textures) is the most underrated this gen. Only down fall is the animation.

I hope u give me an honest opinion on the comparison.

A game look good or not really depends on developers knowing how to optimize their codes. You know there are millions of ways to code for game right? and of course there are efficient and inefficient ones.

[GodofSackboy]

You actually think that. The plants in Uncharted are breathtaking. As are the characters and buildings. Have you even seen the moment in Uncharted 2 where you are at the top of a hotel on the roof, and you can see the whole city, with mountains surrounding you?? It is one of the best things ever seen in a game. Or the train level?? A huge, moving set piece, with enemies crawling all over it and an Apache destroying it bit by bit??? Look at Ben Dover's (lol) comparison and oh, you will repent.

[HappyGaming]

Are you fucking blind?

You think this shit:
http://farm4.static.flickr....

looks better than this:
http://farm4.static.flickr....

Please just shut the fuck up with your fanboyish crap.

Uncharted 1 > Gears 2
Graphically there is no comparison.

[el zorro]

Gumtrol, wipe the Sony cum from your eyes and wake UP. You guys always act like character models are the only thing that exists in a game. What a load of crap.

That's why that kineticninja blog comparison was so stupid. Practically all that fanboy compared was the character models. Not only that but he had to use a bunch of camera angles on the characters that you basically never see when you are actually playing the game.

The characters models look fine when you are actually playing the game. But the character models are basically the weakest part of Gears of War 2. Why don't you look at all the other areas of the game, instead of pretending that character models are all that exist?
When you actually have both games running on your hdtv they indeed look pretty similar.

[Matthew94]

Maxed out is just if the hardware is running at 100%. You could max out the ps3 on pac man if it was badly optimised enough.

[mastiffchild]

If you want to be arguing about it like that, though, you're being a little pedantic, aren't you? I dislike the term "maxed out" myself but I accept they don't mean that they admit their code is so poorly optimised the console can't do anything better than their first effort. Either way, though, the term is BS because, as I see it, when they move on to the next gen we certainly won't have seen a game made which uses every last bit the human mind COULD(given time and cash and imagination)get out of either console. We never do.

Exactly the same with the PC-I'm sure we could get a shedload more performance out of older cards but it's easier and more time efficient to use newer tech and just dumb it down in terms of performance to run at lower settings on older cards for those who haven't updated themselves. Easier than sticking with what we had and wringing out little extra goodies. It's just, I guess, to do with how fast tech moves , in the end.

[ME1989]

*Waits for inevitable "360 is maxed out"*

Edit: Too late

[NYC_Gamer]

360 has yet to bring us a title on the same level as uncharted...that console is already maxed out,that is why gears 3 has no real changes.

[newhumanbreed]

Oh so you've already played Gears of War 3? How was it?

[SaberEdge]

Gears of War 3 has no real changes? Are you delusional?

Gears 3 added an entire real-time lighting engine (you know, one of the biggest things that makes Uncharted look so good) and you say that is no real change?

Real-time lighting has a huge impact on the quality and realism of a game's graphics. It is also quite intensive from an engine perspective, so the fact that it has been added to Gears of War 3, where the previous two games lacked it, is a major accomplishment.

[ME1989]

No changes? The engine has been overhauled in Gears 3. The game is beautiful. I love me some Uncharted, but the Gears series is a definite looker, it surpassed the first Uncharted.

Watch the beauty in motion.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[HappyGaming]

Uncharted 3 >Killzone 3 >Uncharted 2 > God of War 3 > Killzone 2 > Gears 3 > Uncharted 1 > Gears 2 > Halo Reach > Gears 1 > Cod

[redwolf]

^^^^^^^^^^
thats a fact lol

[The real killer]

Why are no games looks like PS3 exclusive on the 360?
The 360 is a easy program, so they are using teh potential power from the 360.

GOW3 not posible on the 360 to begin with it.
So, i ask again why are no games looks so sick on the PS3 not on the 360?

"Maxed out? No.. but the graphical power between the two consoles is becoming bigger and bigger. Where the 360 still needs to show a game as good as Uncharted 1, the PS3 is moving on and raises the bar even more... "

Realy..........name one game for the 360 that beat the PS3 game in grafichs department? only one game!!!

Than you can talk about (graphical power between the two consoles is becoming bigger and bigger)

And the 360 is so easy to program and year early and those game are still most the same.

[RyuCloudStrife]

PS3.5 IS around the corner

[FAGOL]

I can't believe you actually think that's going to happen.

[jsc249jobal]

Believe me, EVERYONE learned from SEGA's mistakes when making consoles. PS3 might continue to get hardware revisions and smaller gpu's/cpu's, but the amount of resources will not change and we will not get an usb attachment that adds power to the ps3.

[EverydayGuy]

The Xbox 360 just need a game engine that is made specifically for the Xbox 360.

[badz149]

best looking game on 360 uses it.

[CWMR]

UE3 is still a multiplatform engine. It wasn't built from the ground up on the 360.

[skrug]

what engine does Forza use? what engine does Halo use? Alan Wake?

[never_waste_a_bullet]

I don't think either console will ever be "maxed out" I think new consoles will come out before this can happen

[PS360PCROCKS]

lmao that picture cracks me up "MAX OUT BITCH" :-D

[Stryfeno2]

Dee Jay was Maxed out...but not in SF4.

[AnonUser5555]

Regardless of systems "maxing out," I still think this generation is going to last longer than previous generations. The main reason for this, in my opinion, is that every system is perfoming rather well. Usually if a console is getting pounded (original xbox comes to mind) the company has incentive to jump to the next generation. Not so right now.

The ps3 is in "last" (for now anyways) but youd have to be pretty dumb to not realize ps3 has been a success...and sonys just hitting their stride.

So its been a good job by each company to create a good product. We will likely see "Wii 2" soon-ish, but its not like thatll spur sony and ms to new systems. Nintendo will just be hoping people upgrade.

[Arup02]

People are still babbling about how the PS3 games looks better? I tough they stopped with this a long time ago. What's the point of proving the superiority of your console? Not that any developer will look at the comments here and make a exclusive just for your console. Although i am a Xbox gamer, i have to admit the PS3 games are looking better in terms of graphics. What PS3 fans want? A confession of everyone that have an Xbox saying that the PS3 is better?

[Objective]

I don't think PS3 is necessarily more powerful than the 360 when it comes to graphics. Sony exclusives looking great is largely because of the first party developers. You have to consider too that there are many multi platform games out there that look great too, whether on 360 or PS3, and multiplatform games have tended to look better on 360 whether ported to PS3 or ported to 360.

[Mr Exclusive]

PC wins yet again.

[Bolts]

PCs don't get maxed out. They become obsolete.

Actually, some PCs do get maxed out, like the mission computer from Appollo 13. That thing was fucking busy.

[tsn]

Define maxed out. 1fps? thats maxing a console out.

[Bolts]

It took 7 years or more years to "max out" the PS2 with games like God of War and Killzone. But everyone knows that by then the system was grossly obsolete.

[LMS]

I'll define maxed out....

low res sub 720p games that run at 20-30 frames per second with jaggies all over.

The consoles are maxed out and have been for some time

if they were not, why are all call of duty games on console 600p

Halo 3 640p

Alan Wake 540p

Tony Hawk Project 8: 1040×584 AA - 360

Tony Hawk Project 8: 1280×720 - PS3

Perfect Dark Zero: 1138×640p - 360

Call of Duty 3: 1120×630p 360

Ninja Gaiden Sigma: 1280×720p PS3

Project Gotham Racing 3: 1024×600 360

Tomb Raider: 1024×600 360 640p launch title...maxed day one!!

yeah...they are so maxed out the gotta use crap sub hd resolutions

lol at perfect dark resolution - launch title maxed the 360

[Too_many_games]

You are one of the reasons i puke at night.

[ct03]

The truth makes you sick?

[Darrius Cole]

@ct03

The truth makes lots of people sick.

[Too_many_games]

No, fanboys that think 1024X600 is sooooo much better then say 1280X700

who cares? if you want ultra resolutions, go play on a PC. So what if Alan Wake is 540p 960p 14000683267.55p it was a great looking AND playing game

[Vega75]

Yeah just like on the ps3 right. Funny how you left out so many sub-HD games on the ps3. Let me help update you list for you.

Red Dead Redemption = 1152x640 (QAA)
Saints row 2-640p
Ghostbusters- 960x540
GTA- 1152x640
MGS4- 1024x768
Dark sector- 1152x640
Ratchet and clanks ToD- 1280x704
Prototype- 1120x640
Haze- 1124x576
Call of Duty 3 1088x624 (2xAA)
Call of Duty 4 = 1024x600 (2x AA)
Call of Duty: World at War = 1024x600 (2x AA)
Bionic Commando = 1120x640 (no AA)
Bioshock = 680p (no AA, blur filter)

http://forums.gametrailers....

See what I did there. And there more on the list too.

[BrianG]

He also left out a lot more sub HD Xbox games, whats your point?

His list at least contains multi platform games. Your list looks like you took his comment the wrong way.

Developers say they are maxing out a console and then provide a sub HD game. But in this industry there is a double standard, for some series 720p isn't enough for gamers, for others its plenty. And for those same gamers that have a problem with 720p probably play sub HD games and love it. So much hypocrisy amongst gamers today. As long as the game looks good and plays great whats the problem?

You can max out a console with more than just pixels, resolution isn't everything. Physics, lighting, collision detection, etc...... All that matters as well, which is why a lot of good games aren't pushing 1080p native 120fps.

[Vega75]

It was nothing to take the wrong way. He intentionally made his list one sided to make one console look worst than the other. If you can't clearly see that then you are the fool. Both console have sub-HD games. I find it very convenient that only 360 game he listed are sub-hd. So I thought I help out since he intentionally left them out a few ps3 games. So I though I help him out

There is no question that dev's will say they maxed out a console or not. But when you trying so hard to make your side look better when they have just as many sub-HD if not more. Than you shouldn't have even bother. And if you felt the need to comment to my post instead of him. Ment that my rebuttal must have stuck you the wrong way.

Oh and I thought I provide the link because I like to provide proof. Oh by the way I didn't even post the more updated list. I could provide that one too if you need

[BrianG]

No thanks, but I see what your saying. I suppose my comment wasn't intentionally aimed at you or him, but more or less what is wrong with the industry now and what gamers view as a "good game" and "maxing out consoles".

I apologize for my connotation, which appears to be negative towards your comment.

[Vega75]

It's no problem. I agree that the industry is messed up about what is deemed a good game or not. HD/sub- hd shouldn't matter as long as the game is fun and you enjoy it. But unfortunately this gen focus mostly on what games that matches uncharted 1/2,KZ3 graphics instead of gameplay. I loved Alan wake it was a great game in my book and was my GOTY. Did it matter that the graphic was sub-hd? No it didn't because I wasn't playing the graphic but the game itself.

I'm also sorry I went at you like that. I admit it's hard to tell the real gamers from the fanboys on this site. So automaticlly I went into defense mode. My bad and I also apologize for that.

[baodeus]

yeah i think people (probably just peeps on N4G), doesn't really enjoy game because it is fun anymore. It is about textures, graphics, fanboy wars, load of craps, etc.....

Who cares, if the game is fun and even if it look like nes or atari, i would still play it and enjoy it more so than game w/ greatest graphic ever but boring.

[N4g_null]

Yeah hd consoles are a myth unless your play last gen code in them then what's the point of paying all that money?

[chidori666]

360 are maxed out in gears 2..

just saying.

[CWMR]

Uh huh, that's why Gears 3 looks way better than Gears 2. Herp derp, you're a real genius.

[PSjesus]

Not sure about XbOx360
PS3 not yet,every body remember 2005 when PS2 is an old story and 360 is
the future,then SONY smashed it by GOW,Rogue
Galaxy,SOTC,RE4,GT4..... eh good times.

[ilkercruiser]

Making a game for a limited hardware limits the quality of products that the developers make. Sometimes they will have to do an "Egg in the bottle" trick. Why do exclusive games look best on the target console? You can make your most killer blow, and hit the bullseye if your bottle is one, alone...

Making a game for a variable hardware is either easy or hard. It's easy, because you can make lots of quality options in order to make your product run on large number of pc's that consumers have. You can push the GFX Quality to the limits. It's hard because there's not a certain hardware in front of you. Millions of hardware combinations available and you must make your game compatible for each of them. Any consumer wants the game they pay $50 crash. This is a big responsibility.

To Summerize it, developers can make some tricks to look the game they make LOOK SO DARN GOOD. Some of them are hiding something from gamers to make surprises in the future.

[LMS]

While both consoles are technically maxed out and have been since day one in terms of inability to render complex games in 1080p with 8x anti aliasing, this does not mean the designers and artist cannot get creative and make even more beautiful games than uncharted 2.

When speaking in terms of sheer polygon count, texture size, anti alising and AA filtering...yes...they are totally maxed!

[ilkercruiser]

You think, maxing out a console is just maxing out everthing from options menu, huh? Is it so simple?

Consoles will be maxed out when the developers give up making game for.

[Hozi89]

When I see the Elder Scrolls 5, I'll believe that they maxed out the consoles.

[DigitalRaptor]

The 360 is definitely not maxed out because Microsoft refuses to buy first party studios to to push the 360 to its limits and show what the hardware can do.

But the reason this topic always comes up, is because Sony has those first party developers who are constantly pushing the graphical boundaries in game engines and pushing gameplay to new heights. Thank god Sony have that sort of attitude.

[Too_many_games]

Name a recent console generation won (most sales) by the most powerful console? PS2? sure it won but it was the weakest. PS1? yup won its generation, and was in the middle of the systems (power wise) Nintendo DS? ding ding...weakest system yet still won. So yea for all you "best graphics means better games people" take a look at history, as ignorant as it is, sales usually mean (not always) quality.

i would say the SNES was the most recent console to be the most powerful during its run and still won in sales.

[Bonerboy]

Insert the standard stupid "PS3 is still better because..." comment here...>

Insert "know it all technical stats" comment here...>

Whats maxed out? This site is MAXED OUT as it is full of dumbass fanboys who cant stop jerking off all over their respective systems. "It only does everything" except get me laid; and I dont even know what the limp 360 dork catch phrase is. Blow me.

[HelghastGeneral]

I am not going to talk about graphics with both systems but I will tell you that dvds are definitely maxed out and hurts multiplatform games. Graphics take up space and each year that space is increasing and games are getting shorter unless they use two dvds but they dont they force it all on one. Some of you may feel that 360's hardware holds ps3 back and some of you will fight to defend the 360 okay but do accept that dvds gotta go trust me its hurting.

[rlm41]

Both consoles are limited to what they can do, otherwise we would be seeing games running at 120fps in 1080p (as promised by Sony :S).. Though Devs are squeezing more and more out of them as technology constantly improves.

[TheTruth89]

ahahha i remember the 120fps announce @2005 E3!.... but hey...

PS3 is an improvement year over year... 360 not AND IS A FACT.

[jukins]

yea they are limited but will never be maxed out but each consoles exclusives are what pushes their respective systems to that "max" lvl

[Xfanboy]

I think 360 just needs good devs to work on it exclusively.. maybe..

[CaliGamer]

Bungie and the Halo series? Still didn't work my man.

[Xfanboy]

halo has an art style to it not sure if it was supposed to be a graphical power house even gears beats it..

[MGRogue2017]

... Depends on where the developers want the power of the console to go to.. Graphics, AI, Physics.. etc etc..

Take that Xbox Live Arcade game Hydrophobia for example.. That game is dedicated to water tech.. There are other graphical effects like fire, electric.. but really, it's all about the water acting & looking as realistic as possible.. & using it as a weapon against your enemies.

Whereas a game like... say, Just Cause 2.. Well, All the power of the console is dedicated to streaming the huge game world.. leaving the graphics to look a little average in terms of texture quality.. & physics.. well the vehicles are fun to drive but driving physics are average at best.

It all depends on the game engine & what it was built for.

[cstyle]

If ps3 exclusives are so great why did a 3rd party title win GOTY this year? Ill tell you why. Its not about graphics or maxing out the hardware.

[AnonUser5555]

Well it just so happened that the 3rd party title was pretty damn good. And maybe certain publications didn't wanna anger the butthurt fanboys with making a ps3 exclusive GOTY for the 2nd year in a row. But whatever.

If you can't even admit that the ps3 exclusives have been top-notch you're not worth arguing with.

I can't wait until the 2011 GOTY awards start rolling out next year. I think it's fair to say that at least half of the "Top 10 Games of 2011" will be ps3 exclusives.

[QuantumWake]

As Richard Parr of Criterion once said:

"That's proof that you're not the best. It means you're out of ideas."

No console is maxed out. Every developer learns how to improve their tech to make it look and run better. The PS3 nor 360 are maxed out. Lots of multiplat and exclusive games show that these consoles still have a lot of power in them, games such as: Killzone 3, Uncharted 3, Gears of War 3, Rage, etc... All show the console's full potential.

[HINDERIZATION]

i hate this "maxed out" term... i just love to play games that are good. i don't give a shit if the game has crummy graphics, as long as the story is good i'm a happy camper. Deadly Premonition proved that.

[GoldPS3]

PS3 won't be maxed out for years becuz of the cell and blu ray.

[ReBurn]

Here come all of the armchair experts. This article is definitely flamewar material.

[yaz288]

bullshit

[Trroy]

While its certainly possible that the 360 has more under the hood than we've seen, I think it's entirely fair to say that we won't see any better looking games on it for the rest of the generation... why do you suppose that is?

Microsoft relies on 3rd parties to produce great software for them... and usually that same software is multiplat on the PS3. MS has rare few exclusive studios not making Kinect games, and their widely accepted "best looking game" is made by Epic, an external studio, using a multiplat engine, as opposed to a 360-specific one.

The 360 will never have a game that looks as good as most of the PS3 exclusives after Uncharted 1, let alone UC2, Heavy Rain, or God of War 3. I'm not knocking the 360 here -- its ease of use often gives it a slight upper hand in crossplat comparisons, but when you're talking "maxed out"... the 360 effectively is, but not necessarily by hardware -- rather by its lack of 1st party software backing.

The 360 is, for all practical purposes, maxed. It has been for a couple years now. The ease of maxing it out is a testament to its ease-of-use, not some detriment, as many fanboys would have you believe. That doesn't stop it from effectively being "maxed" by its software development situation, however.

Also remember that Microsoft enforces the use of DirectX on the 360, in hopes of retaining BC with future consoles. This inherently puts an artificial cap on the hardware, although it does go a long way toward some semblance of software BC in the future (although... yeah, the 40% or so of BC titles from the XBox 1 seem a little weak, to me, given such API restrictions). Sony has no such restrictions, that I know of. Thus, the PS3 is not bound by hardware limitations, OR software. It will naturally "last longer", when it comes to unlocking power.

[QuantumWake]

Exactly. We will never see the Xbox 360's full potential because MS simply does not have the 1st party studio line-up like Sony does. I don't want to start turning this into a flame war, but many of you should know, that the 360 has a beastly GPU. In fact, just by looking at a GPU comparison, the Xenos is a lot more powerful than the RSX in the PS3.

But a question comes up, who's going to grasp that powerful GPU and push it to its limits? Certainly not some of these 3rd party developers. Sony pushes out beautiful games because they have talented 1st party studio developers.

------

TL;DR - These consoles have a lot of potential, it's just up to the developers to find it.

[InTheKnow]

I have no idea what games you guys have been playing this gen but there has been huge increases in both gameplay and graphics for both systems...more in fact for the 360.

If any system appears to be struggling it's the mighty PS3 which, according to Sony is some kind of super computer and should of been rendering games at 1080p/60fps by now...whats wrong???

The xbox 360 has been nothing but impressive from the get go dropping the best looking and PLAYING game this gen...Gears of War in 2006. Lets take a look since words can't explain...

2006 E3 demo...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Now, the video quality is not good but the graphics still shine thru. Few if any games can compete with this, even 5 years later. Here's a couple more vids of the last level in Gears 1...the guy playing loved using the shot gun so alot of the awesome chainsaw melee wasn't used but keep an eye on the destruction and blood gushing graphics...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Lets move ahead to 2008 and some people have said that the games haven't changed...lol...big difference. Besides adding a Horde mode, graphically the game offered many new things that showed thru the gameplay. The AI and well as all the newer enemy types really demonstrated the improvements. The Reavers you saw in the first game for example never landed and just flew in the air...in Gears 2 they landed on the ground in front of you and actually engaged and chased you. Boomers just charged ahead in Gears 1, in the second they they tried to avoid being hit and even raised their hands to deflect bullets...Here's the reveal trailer...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Epic discussing some AI and enemy type upgrades...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

....and of course the final game...here's Jacinto sinking...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Now, let's take a look at Gears 3 for release in Sept 2011...whats been shown so far...LIVE DEMO...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

...and the multi-player...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

No game ANYWHERE and ANY system looks and plays like Gears...all in real time. If there is a Gears 4, expect even more. So lets see...single player, 4 player story based co-op, Horde mode with added beast mode and dedicated server multi-player...same as 2006...LMFAO.

Epic is only one example and there are many examples. 2011 will be the biggest leap yet.

[iliimaster]

gears 2 maxed out the xbox and im fine with that.. its a good looking game.. but to say the xbox has not maxed out is crazy,,, look uncharted 1 to uncharted 2.... mega difference.... gears one from gears 2 little difference more so in the shadowing,,, gears 3 will look pretty much like all of the unreal engine games... not to say it wont look good but it has its limits... the ps3 on the other hand seems unlimited and thats why the ps4 is so off into the future there is nothing the wii 2 or the next xbox cant do that the ps3 already does, 3d, free online (which gets better and will get better overtime) bluray 1080p Hd audio, and can do way more i dont see what the next console can do to compete with an already robust ps3 following

[DFresh]

It's hard to hell.
Though from what I've seen so far Xbox 360 seems to be maxed out after Gears of War 2.
Gears of War 3 only has a slightly improved engine for the game.
PS3 still has a ways to go before it's maxed out.
PC is in a league of it's own.
Obviously.

[Garnett]

Everyone knows the 360 was maxed out with Gears 1 and PS3 was maxed out with Uncharted 2. Now Wii, thats a system that'll never be maxed out!

[Lawliet]

Xbox360 MAXED OUT.
PS3 Not YET.

Don't give me that technology hardware bull that I seriously wouldn't bother tadbit about it.(I don't know much about hardware, neither do I think you know much! So I don't need a newb telling me about it) So I believe of facts in what I see! And I see Xbox360 have not been improving with both graphically and physically for 2years now. You can pull GeoW3 out of your arse and say that it looks better. Maybe it does(In some people who wants to believe), still it doesn't look like a leapfrogger, and who knows you might be getting the better graphic in sacrificing the game physics.

A pure example would be "Alan Wake". Great graphic yet plain in physic. Game was short and not many event! While all the time just fighting apparitions.

Would ask why is that happening? Is it the developers in- capabilities or is it that the hardware itself can't hold the game.

What about "Mess Effect 2"? Have you ever notice just how less destructive the game is? And the funny thing is, you might actually spend more time with the dialogue than playing the game. Nonetheless it was an amazing game. It doesn't always have to be MAX OUT everything to experience a brilliant game. Still it's no harm if we could just get MORE!

PS3 on the other hand is different. I could easily just flash out the obvious! Keep my mouth and let the game do the talking. And you will get the picture. That's a leapfrogger!

[wissam]

Yes and true. the ps3 still a head of the other consoles
in this department.

[dragonclawf4]

upcoming games like rage, crysis 2, gears 3, mgs: rising, bioshock infinite etc. show that ps3/360 arent maxed out.

[Jdoki]

I don't think either console is maxed out - but the gains seen on the 360 are definitely smaller than those on the PS3.

Whether this is because MS has a lack of 1st party devs and proprietary game engines; or simply because the hardware is starting to top out, I dunno.

Both systems have some great looking games.

[xtremegamerage]

People love the throw the PC isn't maxed out into the mix.

The PC comes in various shapes and forms, and the term maxed out, can mean the engine itself, shader throughput, aa, textures,ai.

Some games chug on pc and others run great.

So many things and engine does.

Alot of code on PC is sloppy, and you have seen how that works on the PS3, Not very well. 360 handles that code easier, but could still be tuned to run alot better.

I still think they should have gone with cell, but dual core with spu's. Early devs would have easier time with setup and then more would have started on the SPU side of things.

Theres still a way to go yet, so things will improve on all consoles.

[NeloAnjelo]

To say a console is maxed out is nearly impossible. The longer a consoles' life, the more developers and programmers can get from the system. The best games to run on the PS2 came in the last 2 years of that console's life cycle. Not just the best looking, but overall performance.

Look at the jump on the PS3 and 360 bwtween the first year and over the next 2 years... especially the PS3. first there were the crappy ports, then there were the good looking exclusives. Now the exclusives are miles beyond the Multiplats.. Infamous 1 to Infamous 2, R:FOM, to R2, UC to UC2, Killzone 2 to 3... This trend will contiune, and will do so on both consoles. (Apologies for only using PS3 examples, but they are the most obvious)...

[DJMarty]

It's good for the Cell to be 'maxed out'.

If you all knew how SPU's worked you'd be thanking them, for pushing the PS3 to it's max.

Cell SPU's need to be feed data constantly to be effient.

Not feeding the Cells SPU's with data leaves them idle, basically wasting CPU cycles.

The trick is to get more effient code running doing more before constantly maxing them out. Thats why more and more code has been transfered from PPE to SPU's over the years.

[Dark_Overlord]

Technically its quite easy to max any PC/console etc just write some piss poor code with memory leaks, resource hogging etc. Hell even a simple 2 line batch file can cripple a PC.

What can be improved on however is the game engine, and that is what we are seeing with the newer games. Better and more efficient allocation of resources can produce end results not thought possible

[bilbobob]

"Hell even a simple 2 line batch file can cripple a PC."

something tells me you have played Gothic 4 too. Well attempted to anyway.

[Dark_Overlord]

lol

no I haven't, but I have heard about there being 'issues' with it :D

[oguzsasi]

Then we just belive them!
And it cant be maxed out with 4 years!

Its that simple!

[SephireX]

Of course the consoles will never be literally maxed out but imo the term "maxed out" means that developers reach a stage where the software tweaks that they make result in improvements that are very very small and barely noticeable. I believe that that stage will be reached with the games releasing next year.

[bilbobob]

I doubt either consoles are maxed out. Just like my pointless comments.

[Tunerboy8732]

They might not be but my credit card is almost maxed out from buying so many games for them.

[Rageanitus]

When console makers are having trouble making the game into native 720 and above .... im sure the consoe is being nearly maxed out.

where are my 1080 p games.... and quite honestly ppl actually believe what is written on the box 1080p output means its "1080p native" c

[zero_cool]

A gaming platform's product life cycle isn't over until the majority of game developers have exhausted every practical possibility.

[divideby0]

"Games like Uncharted 2 no doubt use all of the PS3′s power,"

author is a fail.. didnt the title contradict his quote above

just another clueless author who has to come up with a nonsense article to fill is idle time.. at least if their was some technical backing to his lame attempt, it might have made a better read

[Gamer112]

Tbh i dont really care if the consoles are maxed out or not i just wanna play games and own those noobs ( thats 90% of ppl on n4g)

[CrIpPeN]

Glad I am a PC gamer, there is the graphics. Tired of playing games on my PS3 when most of them are bad ports with either screen tearing or framerate issues.

Only the exclusives are something to look at.

[ton77]

i dislike when developers say they maxed out the console... Then there next game has way better graphics. the term should be i maxed out the 360/ps3 for "now"

[sway__z]

The 360 is limited by it's DVD format and 6 core processor set up. I'm a PS3 owner and i'll admit 'Graphically', the 360 can do most, if not all the visuals of PS3, but it's the processor of the 360 that would have a tough time moving them on screen to the same level as PS3 as the CELL is factually more advanced.

Agree or not...it's a fact that even MS would yield to.

If visuals are more important to YOU than game play, you're heading in the wrong direction! :)

[SLLCKGT]

Regardless if the 360 can or cannot do the same visuals as PS3 exclusives, fact remains that developers are not stepping up their game.

Oh, and if you don't care about games and only care about graphics, then PC is for you. hehe

[Drab]

"Rage" will bring it closer to any other game

[redwolf]

i think 360 is maxed out certainly due to DVD, you only have to look at the best exclusive produced by both consoles each PS3 comes out on top every year

[ironmonkey]

360 is finished in terms of graphics. developers are trying their best to make games feel long and fit on the weak dvd. ps3 games are bigger and feel bigger and graphics eat up 360 games. ms is just releasing sub-par games now to make ends meat.

[TheDarkness]

Both consoles are great. Ps3 is a year ahead of 360 in hardware. and 360 is ahead a year in community than the ps3. Big deal love the games you play and stop it with the nonsence.

[Congentleman]

This article is great, I totally agree, and it's getting a little annoying to keep hearing developers saying they're 'maxing out' a console when you can't ever truly do that.

[yewles1]

What funny times. Last gen it was "untapped potential" now it's "max'ed out", too funny.

[stonecold3]

i think 360 has already been maxed out already when ff13 came out. but ps3 i would say no because it would take a few more years to get out of the ps3 and most multiplat games arent pushing the ps3 to it limit because 360 holds them back and peace out ea and cliffyb metioned when gears 2 came out peace out ?

[ivant]

We will need to see what Epic does with Gears3 as it traditionally shows what can be achieved with the 360.

[ZBlacktt]

Neither may be maxed out. But just how many disc's do Xbox owners want to keep swapping out? 3?4?8?

[ivant]

The title states the obvious.

This is why console gaming is better than PC gaming. Gaming PCs are clearly more powerful but game developers never get enough time to get the most possible from the hardware, as CPUs and GPUs are upgraded routinely.

With consoles, the H/w specs remain constant for a longer period of time so developers can discover new ways of getting the best from what they have.

No regular h/w upgrades for at least 5 years plus.

[LMS]

both ps3 and 360 are technically maxed out...

or else uncharted 2 would have been 1080p with 8x anti alising, if naughty dog( who are genius programmers btw) had rendered the game to these specs on ps3 it would have been an unplayable 10 frame per second mess.

so yes they are maxed out 100% most definately...have we seen the best looking game an artist can produce...hell no....

with more dynamic enviroments, better lighting tricks, more intracite charachter design there is room for improvement...but you will never, EVER see a full native 1920x1080p AAA title with 8x anti aliasing on ps3 or 360 because it would be a slideshow

[1PC2PS33360]

consoles were "maxed out" day one.

most launch titles were 720p or less

today same thing

devs today have to constantly choose what to sacrifice on console to maintain a steady framerate, be it draw distance, AA or AF, or native screen render size

the resolution is usually the first to go, as it affords the largest increase in frame return, next they drop Anti Aliasing(if the game even had it)

so yes, sorry to say, from a purely technical standpoint, the consoles are thouroughly and 100% completely maxed beyond all concievable realms of existance, they have been since day one and were instantly locked into their given hardware specs but they are still capable of some beautiful games with the right artists.

I am totally ready for a new gen of consoles, because besides Uncharted 3 and Killzone 3, there are not too many console games I will be buying, everything else will be on PC where 1080p, 1600p and 16x anti alising is the norm.

[xino]

not maxed out!?

it's a lie!

when the Xbox 360 makes a game like Uncharted 1 then the system would finally be maxed out!

when the ps3 makes a game that looks like CG it wou....wait...Uncharted 3 is CG graphics! Look at the scene with Drake reading the book to Sully!

i love my ps3 man! :)

[vandal GAB]

Is there a chance developers have to hold back pushing the xbox hardware to its limits due to hardware overheating issues that have plagued the system since launch? More stress on the system equals more heat equals RROD on older systems.

[KillingAllFanboys]

What has this website become? A fight arena for fanboys to clash, who fucking cares if maxed out or not? what about amazing games that are coming out, what about having fun. I am serious all you guys that are fighting are stupid
-_-

[Ma1nframe]

LOL The 360 has been maxed out now for almost 2 years!!!

[neoandrew]

Crysis 2 will come out, in 3d on both consoles, best looking game, no difference in quality on xbox 360/ps3 AND THAT IS A FACT

Thank you

[Organization XII]

360 is, ps3 is not.

[Enigma_2099]

Ridiculous. I don't even think they've pushed the the Nintendo Wii as hard as they could. They just won't do it because they can't force it to do HD.

[Three_Sisters]

Nathan Drake sure likes to max out the PS3 by his own way :)