Anyone making games for old systems has an advantage over what even professional studios had back in the day, especially for the 16-bit and 32-bit era given the cost and what modelling tools were around at the time, not many studios could afford SGI systems. If the same team who made GTA 3 on the PS2 were going back to make it today on the same system we would see big improvements, let's face it and that's true for most systems and developers and the same for movie-making, people in their own homes can make special effects up there or better than what major studios could do in the early 90's and you can also watch a you Tube video to show you how its done.
I've never been a fan of using a game made today as proof of the power of what an old console could do. I just go on games that were made at the time, because that for me is the fairest way.
I do find it a little funny when you see all this talk of GTA3, when the PS2 couldn't handle a decent port of Maken X
. Most games made and developed for one console will lose something in their port to a different console.
I love the DC but the PS2 could handle more polygons and double the RAM which was a big bottleneck for DC games IMO