When game developers begin to talk about limits and maximum potential, hardware developers know it's time to create something new, powerful and shiny enough to keep the software boys busy for another 5 to 10 years. So when Rod Fergusson, who is the senior producer of the Gears of War 2 game, recently stated that he thought the Xbox 360 was nearing the limit of its graphical capabilities, you could almost hear the cries of the poor engineers working for Microsoft at the New Console We Are Not Talking About division.

 

The senior developer was talking to Gamasutra as part of an in depth interview when he specifically said that "with the two to three more years of optimization that we've had, we're much further along than I think, three years ago, we thought we were going to get. So I think we're certainly approaching the upper end of it, as far as what developers are able to do with it, but just looking at all the demos we saw today, ours and others, it's clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar."

 

He also said that games were already in development, and Epic almost surely had an unannounced project, maybe even Gears of War 3, which will only ship in 2010, and that those games would surely look better than the ones of today. The problem is that the developers are really pushing the hardware to get better performance and better quality and there's not much room for improvement.

 

There has already been a bit of an outrage when gamers first took a look at the way Grand Theft Auto IV will look on PCs when it ships later in the year. The game looks much better than it did on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and yes, it uses hardware that the medium PC does not have but prices are always dropping and performances are steadily going up so console gamers might soon become disillusioned with what they are being offered and they might just flock back to the PC for their gaming fix if better gaming consoles don't make an appearance.