I find it rather eye-opening to hear the reactions from people who just play games for fun from time to time.
"I can't tell if it's any better than the 360."
"This really doesn't look any different."
"Why would I buy a new console."
This isn't some insipid internet troll throwing this stuff out. Just regular people going about their lives at Fred Meyer and such. Really underwhelming compared to the sorts of reactions back in the days of fundamental tech leaps.
Never heard anything of the sort when people were seeing Mario 64 for the first time.
That's completely not comparable. Mario was such a staple in 2D, to see him in 3D was huge, every other game that moved from 2D to 3D was about the same.
That was a huge paradigm shift in gaming. I imagine it's what VR will do once more people see it in action (although that's OT so we don't have to go down that route).
I am just as amazed by KZ: Shadowfall as I was with the beginning of each generation's games.
Like somebody said, what a depressing thread. I'm 38, been through a ton of launches and owned almost every system ... this gen has been a slow start but the games impress me just as they did through the past generations and I'm just waiting for it to really pick up steam. I'm also a PC gamer but I keep my expectations in check.
Personally, I don't think people know what to look for, but that's no fault of the consumer. I notice particles, shadows, resolution bumps, etc ... while a 'soccer mom' sees Mario on the Wii and Wii U and it's the same. Same with comparing Infamous games. I can't imagine somebody looking at them and actually seeing a huge difference if you didn't really look at gaming in general with a discerning eye. It's like all those people that bought HDTV's and hooked them up with basic video cables going "damn, look at that!"
My girl played the PC version of Skyrim (I bought it on sale) and I had already gotten quite a few hours into the 360 version and I have a great PC for that game and she never really noticed all the differences although it was completely apparent.