Why have video game graphics taken 37 years to look this way? Apart from purely technical (and power) limitations, what exactly gets better every three or four years (PS2 to PS3 to PS4 in game cutscenes for example)
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Power is pretty much the more or less of it.
The number of things you could possibly want a computer to do can always outstrip the things it actually can do. You can bring a modern PC to its knees today with very little effort just by opening too many Chrome tabs. Imagine how constrained a game developer has to feel when they want to implement really detailed things in really detailed environments. It’s way easier to hit the ceiling of what’s possible than it is to not. That ceiling is higher now than it ever has been, and it’s always climbing higher, but it’s still easy to reach.
That said, there is something to be noted about how big the video game market has become, and the factor that has played. A bigger customer base means more opportunity to make bigger profits, and bigger profit opportunities means developers can justify bigger budgets, which can pay for more hands on deck to cram more details into the game. The gaming market was by no means “small” back in the era when video game graphics were much more primitive. But the market we have today, where video games can have bigger production budgets than mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and support global simultaneous releases, there’s definitely a lot more money to toss around at graphics.
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