Sony's E3 events are historically notorious for the old bait and switch.
ND rarely delivers something which looks as good as what they show at E3. UC4 looks great, but it's a clear downgrade from what they originally showed, and until the game's out, I wouldn't count on it looking as good as it does at the show.
Horizon, same thing. Guerilla Games did the worst lie in all of games showcases. The E32005 showcase of KZ2 will never be erased.
Don't fall for it. Wait until the games come out, then do your own evaluation... until then, don't buy what you see on Sony's stage. It's usually a clear exaggeration.
Also, using PC dev kits to demo games is totally normal prior to launch, and notice what was shown was no better than what was launched. It *WAS* representative of the final product... The UC4 trailer wasn't even close to that. It was nothing more than a sham.
Take a look at my post history. Yes, I know, and I don't approve.
One of the first (and worst) offenders was Halo 2. The reveal trailer was EXACTLY like what ND notoriously does... it was rendered on an Xbox alright, it was "in-engine", it was using all in-game assets, and it was rendered "in real-time", but it was rendered at a couple frames a second, then recorded and played back at 30 FPS. It's (by definition) pre-rendered... but you can use nearly every term in the book to imply it's representative of actual in-game visuals... sucks.
Exactly the same thing with ND's UC4 trailer. It was false/fake.
The difference is, Sony/ND/Guerilla are *MUCH* more common offenders than Microsoft. Tragically, MS higher-ups are seeing how effective it is with Sony to essentially lie about the visual quality, so I'm hearing about and seeing more and more examples of us doing it, and it sickens me. The tragic part is that it's only still being done because it works. People fall for it every time... and then the ones who see through it are labeled as "douches". Tragic.
I can see where you are coming from, cause yeah that Killzone 2 stuff was prety bad back then. But after that, during the PS3 era, i don't recall much downgrades for the Uncharted games from reveal footage to released game. Unless i am wrong. Same with Killzone 3, i think the reveal was pretty on par with the released game?
Uncharted 4 last year during PSX did not look like that E3 2014 reveal, agreed. That almost looked photorealistic. The PSX demo seemed to lack a lot of graphical effects, that graphical punch so to speak. Except for really cool foliage movement, it lacked the wow effect, but this new footage looked incredible. Maybe not the photorealistic look of E3 2014, but a lot better than the PSX footage. A serious question, do you question the new Uncharted 4 footage? After all they do say ''captured from a PS4.'' and that goes for Horizon as well, captured from a PS4 it says. If when the games come out and DF does a thorough analysis, or not even nessecarily DF, but it looks significantly worse, that would be a real bad look on Sony and i don't think that's their intention. I am positive a s***load of folks will still buy it and love it, cause everyone and their mother nowadays is hyped about PS4, lol.
I can't deny that, even though i was incredibly blown away by Horizon, me and my friend did start to talk about the positbility that this was on a high end PC, cause it just looks that goddamn good. Basically i am not 100% believing i yet and its always a good thing to just take the wait and see approach. That said.....
I agree with McMasters that MS could take some things from Sony's book on how they do things. What i personally REALLY like about Sony, is that they let their studios make other IP's as well. They could have went with Killzone 5,but instead GG get's to make a completely different thing and see how it pays off. Same with ND, they got to make The Last of Us...what a gem of a game that was/is. Microsoft......343i, definitely talented folks, only making Halo games. Hardcore Halo fans may not agree with this, but there is something called ''too much of Halo.'' i would love it if MS let's 343 develop something diffrent after Halo 5 but i just don't believe that will happen.
Or take Black Tusk that changed into The Coalition. They now want you to think of Gears when you hear this developer's name. I don't like it personally. Are we going to get a ton of Gears games after 4? However, kudos to Microsoft for bringing new names to the table as well with Scalebound, Quantum Break AND Recore. Oh and cannot forget about Sea of Thieves, new IP too, even though i am not yet too excited about it. But that's also because i was so goddamn hungry for a Banjo 3. Like i said before, i love Xbox and i really dig Microsoft's ways when it comes to Xbox Live, the UI, just everything. Their way of presenting shows and all that stuff. So naturally i want to be amazed by their content. The way i was amazed when Sony showed Horizon and Uncharted 4, boy i would have LOVED to be that amazed with the Gears 4 reveal or any of their exclusives. I'll say it again, apart from some cool things in the Gears 4 footage...i was underwhelmed. The faces really didn't look all that impressive, sure a lot better than the 360 games but i expect more of Unreal Engine 4. But i am just gonna take the wait and see approach with this one.It's so crystal clear how much this is a WIP project.
Now i am looking forward to Gamescom, cause unless i am mistaken..we are gonna get gameplay of Scalebound and Crackdown, f***ing finally. Hopefully Recore get's its proper gameplay reveal (hopefully they let this be in development long enough for it to be a truly AAA game) and more Quantum Break is never a bad thing. Who knows, it might even look better now too.