9. 1080p/60fps
It's would be redundant to point out how vital the technology of the new generation of hardware is to the future of the industry, but as the gaming audience is slowly becoming more savvy when it comes to hardware specifications and statistics, as developers are already having to push the Xbox One and PS4 to their current known limits to try and satisfy one consistent demand from console gamers; the need to have games running at 1080p resolution while running at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. The last generation of consoles were the first of the HD age and offered varying levels of graphical fidelity with them both supporting up to 1080p, but the ability of the hardware to meet one resolution is all well and good - it's the software you run on it that needs to be able to make use of the tech efficiently to achieve this. 1080p/60fps has long been the holy grail for console developers as most PC gamers have been able to achieve it for a long time with the more up-to-date graphics cards and RAM/processor configurations on the market, however no game in the last generation of consoles managed to hit 1080p and 60fps - the hardware just wasn't able to cope with the demands. Case and point arrives when you look at the fan backlash concerning the upcoming open-world game Watch_Dogs, which developer Ubisoft recently revealed would run at 900p/30fps on the PS4 and at a slightly lower resolution on the Xbox One. Many people decried the developer for all the delays the game has suffered and the perceived failure to live up to the 'next gen experience' that is 1080p/60fps. In many people's eyes, the game is already a failure regardless of what the gameplay is like, how interesting the story is or the fact that Ubisoft have managed to squeeze an enormous open-world game with huge scope onto no less than six different platforms. While there's no doubt that eventually in this generation of home consoles developers will eventually get their head around 1080p/60fps on a consistent basis, it will eventually be superseded by the likes of 4K technology as the demands of gamers increase in-line with affordable technology.