[dllthomas]

> developers learn how to squeeze more and more out of the platform

That's a part of it, to be sure, but another dynamic is that developers have to squeeze more out of the system. Dropping old techniques on new hardware will probably give you a game that looks "better" than what's already out. Once everyone has done that, to look "better" you need something new other than hardware.

[furyofantares]

That’s another part of it, to be sure, but yet another dynamic is that it being a mostly fixed system, rather than a wide array of target hardware, is what makes it feasible to implement these tricks and accumulate knowledge in the first place. It all kind of goes hand-in-hand — the fixed nature of the hardware makes it so you have to find these tricks in order to compete with games that play on newer hardware, and also makes it so that it’s possible to do so. I find it fascinating. But I suppose the market would have just found different stabilizing points were this not the case.

[dllthomas]

Agreed.