While the prospect of having crisper and more detailed visuals with next-gen consoles is certainly an exciting one, we’re at a point where many developers are beginning to focus more on the performance side of things with better frame rate than improving resolutions. This applies even more to genres like racers and fighting games- and one of the biggest racing franchises out there, Gran Turismo, seems to be headed in that direction as well.
Recently, Polyphoy Digital CEO and Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi talked about the future of the series (via GT Planet) from a technical standpoint, saying that as far as resolution is concerned, “4K resolution is enough.” Yamauchi is much more concerned with improving frame rates, and is targeting frame rates even as high as 240 frames per second.
“Rather than a spatial resolution that you’re talking about, I’m more interested in the advancements we can make in terms of the time resolution,” he said. “In terms of frames per second, rather than staying at 60 fps, I’m more interested in raising it to 120 FPS or even 240 FPS. I think that’s what’s going to be changing the experience from here on forward.”
Yamaauchi also said that as consoles grow more powerful, overtime, the leaps from generation to generation have become less drastic. “Going from PS1 to PS2 there was a hundred times the performance difference between the two console generations,” he said. “An advancement like that is no longer possible.”