I'll keep this (relatively, for me) short.
My kids and I have been playing Mario Kart World on the Switch 2. It's really well done, free roam is fun (but limited), and the controls, smoothness, graphics, etc. are REALLY well done. It's lacking in many features (ghosts racing, competitive free roam trials, tracks, items, etc.) and I hope many of the gaps will be filled in over the coming years. It's feeling a bit played out already.
BUT... I've also recently introduced Double Dash (Gamecube) and Mario Kart Wii to the kids. They got a kick out of wii motion controls and double dash's gimmicks, but even with a retrotink, playing it on a big flatscreen TV is just not ideal.
So I sailed the high seas for some ROMs (to games I already own), installed the Dolphin emulator, and installed some 4K texture packs. My PC is ok... i7-4790 processor (10+ years old) and a 3080.
Double Dash, a game from 23 years ago now looks almost as good as Mario Kart World (you can easily find Youtube videos). It's staggeringly good. The controls and speed -- better than World, imho. The performance is fantastic.
If you took the base Double Dash or Wii game and compared to World, you would say we've come incredibly far. But, with a little upscaling, some new textures, etc., it's clear that we really haven't.
I get that Nintendo games are not known for pushing the envelope, but I think this is just one good example of how ... empty ... modern AAA gaming is.
I find it hilarious that they keep saying "We need more UE 5 because it helps make games faster" "We need more AI" "We need more [...]", when in reality, games have never taken longer to make, even when games had to be made in Assembly, and artists had to draw literally pixel by pixel.
At the same time they do the most barebone gameplay possible, but on the other side, they will spend 2 years on a single map because they need to add every prop in existence.
Having baseline materials DOES help. But they're still just baseline materials. Give a great sculptor a highly impure and faulted block of marble, and give me the alchemically perfect block of marble, and they will still make a better statue out of their waste rock than I could with the ideal one. No amount of good materials will help me in that contest.
But give either of us the opposite, and our results clearly would change. They'd make a masterpiece, and I'd likely not be able to make anything except a pile of smaller rocks.
In the SC2 modding community, you have people making complete overhaul mods that fundamentally change how the game plays, in a handful of months, solo. The source material is very good to work with, AND these people are independently motivated and talented. Their incentive to make a good product... Is making the good product.
In corporate development? There is no incentive to make a good product, your pay is the same. In fact, there's no incentive to make ANY product, your pay is the same. And you're there for the paycheck, not love of the game, so why strain yourself when no one else is? It's an industry bloated and infested with leeches, karens, HR, focus groups, investor and marketeer management... The moment you make an actual effort, you're "rewarded" with no additional pay, but the obligation to do two leeches work on top of your own, forever, until you quit, while they coast. And the work you do isn't determined by what you think will be good or fun, but by what capital investors think will turn profit.