You don't understand.
Horizon 2 could be 60fps, but less pretty.
DriveClub could be 60fps, but less pretty.
Forza Motorsport could be 30fps, and more pretty.
They are choices. Choices made this generation, last generation and will be in the next console generation.
And it has nothing to do with this console generation at all. The original Gran Turismo had a 60fps mode unlocked at the end. It stripped back a lot of track detail to deliver this, but it was done on a console from the mid-90s.
Here's the thing. Developers have 100 magic computer beans. No more, no less. In every console. They can spend the beans on frame rate and on how pretty each frame is, but they will never have more than 100.
The choice where to spend these is often made on the type of game it is. So a developer of a simulation style racing game may decide to spend 70 of those beans on the frame rate, but just 30 on making each frame pretty. The developer knows the players of this game will favour the high frame and control response over graphical flourishes and anti-aliasing.
Meanwhile a developer making an arcade style racing game might decide that making the game prettier than any other is their aim and without all the physics there's power to spare. 20 beans are used for the frame rate and 80 to make it pretty. The result a game locked at 30fps.
Then there are the complications of closed circuits versus streaming an open world. The former might need 10 beans, the latter 30 beans. Leaving you just 70 beans for frame rate and pretty graphics.
But at every stage there are clear choices of priorities. And it doesn't matter which console generation you choose there will always be these choices. The next generation won't mean every racing game will be 60fps, it will mean developers once again decide where to put the power depending on the type of game they are building.
Every console generation we get arguments like yours. And it is just wrong. Yes it would be great if Horizon 2 was 60fps. But do you know what Playground would have done if it had the console hardware to do that? Would we get this game looking like this but at 60fps? I doubt it - I bet the developer would have used that extra horsepower to make the game even more detailed and beautiful, at a locked 30fps.
That's not to say there aren't problems with some games. For example Gran Turismo 5 strives to be pretty at 60fps and fails to hit that frame rate a lot of the time. The frame rate itself is not always the problem - but the lack of consistency. Horizon is ridiculously smooth for a 30fps racer, GT5 often feels jerky even though the frame rate is higher. It seems Polyphony gave 70 magic beans for frame rate, but let the part of the game that wants to be pretty take some of those beans away sometimes. I don't like that approach. I'd rather we had 60 or 30 and locked it. Inconsistency is where problems lie. And yes in an ideal world 60fps would be great for all games. But to enforce that takes the choice away from developers. The Horizon 2 demo shows the locked 30fps works great for that game - it really is smooth and snappy enough for the kind of game it was. Forza Motorsport 6 will need to be 60 fps, as will GT7 - but their focus is different.
TL
R you're wrong
