https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon

Developers make choices they don’t set limitations, the limitation is always imagination vs. hardware.

Games like Skyrim or Dragons Dogma could had made concessions in any number of ways that didn’t have to affect the graphics.

First off you are trying to frame your whole argument in a logical fallacy.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon

Saying that everyone wants this feature is presumptuous and requires data you can’t cite because you don’t have it.

Largely it is the PC crowd who is concerned about refresh rates. You can find a nearly endless catalog of discussions about this on PC forums. You just don’t find tons of discussions like that on console forums, suggesting they don’t really care. The fact is most console players don’t want to fuss with settings, drivers, optimizations, etc. and want a turn key solution.

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“the most common one being that current generation hardware simply isn’t capable of a solid 60 FPS. This is far from the truth. Making 60 FPS a standard isn’t a hardware limitation; rather it’s a developer limitation.”

Your wording here is troublesome. The fact is that these are developer CHOICES not limitations, the limitations are the imagination vs. the hardware. They only have so much memory, CPU and hardware to go around. 30 frames per second allows them to do much more than they could with a game running 60 frames per second.

You are basically saying that all developers only use 30 frames per second because of graphics. Games like Skyrim or even Dragons Dogma (which letterboxed the game) completely blow that argument out of the water. They could had achieved 60 frames per second with any number of concessions that were not graphics related.

The vision that developers have rapidly outgrew the hardware this generation (mainly in memory).

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“Many cite 60 FPS as being a “smoother, more fluid experience.” Beyond simple responsiveness, making 60 FPS the standard would solve many performance issues within the game. For example, 30 FPS is currently said to be the minimum for smoothness to a game (the “smoothness threshold”).”

Many cite? That is another appeal to a bandwagon.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon

The fact is this smoothness threshold is all subjective to the game and the player. For one Battlefield would be weird if everyone moved like they did in Call of Duty. I like that games look and feel different from each other. Killzone 2 and Battlefield BC2 and 3 have weighty controls, I don’t think 60FPS will change that.

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“In an extreme case, if Microsoft were to release their next Xbox with similar specs to the Playstation 4, but decided to make 60 FPS a requirement, they risk having their games being smaller in scope and graphically inferior to the PS4. The only way for this system to work is if every game publisher and manufacture made this the standard, and that is unlikely to happen.”

First off it’s PlayStation not Playstation. As a video game author you should know your brands and trademarks!

Why don’t we require that all developers use Quake III like COD so they call all run at 60 FPS?

Shouldn’t developer work within the confines they set for themselves and not have more limitations on them provided by the platform providers?

Well not everyone has the money to be able to afford a rig that can handle the developer ambitions as well as a 60 frames per second graphical prowess. The real benefit to consoles is developers have an exact set of specifications to work within and can take advantage of that power in a more long term scope. This isn’t done as often on PCs because of the rapid deployment of new video processors. The level of maturity in the PS3 and Xbox 360 middleware is much higher than PC because of that. Without that maturity this console generation would had been done long ago and we would not have had great software like Uncharted 2 or Halo 3, at least not in the form we saw them.

Wipeout is known for it’s fluidity, but even Wipeout 2048 suffered for this, which I’m sure is just because Sony wanted to show off the best graphical capabilities of the Vita at launch in static screenshots and limited framerate trailers at the expense of the actual gameplay experience.

Racing games are especially painful in 30FPS and it often kills my interest in a game. I was so excited for Need For Speed: Most Wanted on the strength of Criterion’s previous ultra fluid Burnout Paradise, but as soon as I played the demo, I immediately decided I would not buy the game.

This also makes me wonder if 30FPS 3D-enabled games would be capable of 60FPS in 2D, since the 3D mode requires two images per frame which technically becomes 60FPS. Could Uncharted 3 have been run in 2D at 60FPS? Even if it were possible, they’re unlikely to risk the complaints they would get from players who would perceive the lower 30FPS framerate in the 3D version as a “problem” compared to the 60FPS 2D version.

Then again, it’s not really that clear cut, since 3D support only doubles the rendering per cycle, but does require doubling the number of update cycle that 60FPS would require.

It is not a matter of “power” it is a matter of graphics. The next consoles will be able to play current games on 60 fps but as graphics advance, they gonna go to 30 for better visuals.

The 1080p is also irrelevant, you can take a game with unimpressive visuals and run it on 1080p but as time goes by for games with better graphics, you need to lower to 720p even 480p.

The “why not 45 fps” is also pointless, it is either 30 or 60 because they are smooth, 30 fps is smoother than 45 fps, it is a matter of smoothness not speed.