Rod Fergusson, franchise senior producer for Gears of War at Epic, has said that he believes the "upper end" of what the Xbox 360 can do is being reached.

Speaking in an interview, Fergusson said, "all I know is that with the two to three more years of optimization that we've had, we're much further along than I think, three years ago, we thought we were going to get.

"So I think we're certainly approaching the upper end of it, as far as what developers are able to do with it, but just looking at all the demos we saw today -- ours and others -- it's clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar." (He was unclear on what "the demos we saw today" were).

Elaborating further, Fergusson said, "I think it's just a matter of, you know, it's a slow cycle; you only get a kick at it every couple years, and so it takes a while for people to see that progress.

"There will be games in development that won't ship until 2010, and I'm sure they'll look killer, just because, again, they'll have more time with it, and learn from mistakes and optimizations of others. So, I don't know; I think we're getting up there, but I still think there's room to grow."

Hedging his bets a bit, isn't he? Still, it wouldn't do to send the message, 'we're delivering all we can technically deliver with Gears 2', would it? He probably wouldn't love a bitch-slap from Microsoft PR, either.

It should also be noted that he uttered the words, "I mean, I'm not the technical guy..." If that's the case, you're probably not doing yourself any favours by making proclamations about what the hardware's upper limit is, are you? That said, you presumably don't get to be one of the senior producers on a AAA game without knowing what you're on about...

^{Source: Gamasutra}