My thoughts:

* For technology that is 8 years old, this is mighty impressive how small the difference is. It's worth looking back to see the 360/PS3 launch titles to see just how much has come from programming efficiency rather than raw processing power. It will be interesting to see if in 5 years, these new consoles will look equally miles better than they do now.

* Textures are sharper, particle effects like smoke and dust are snazzier and draw distance is greatly improved but ... on the whole, the lighting, most of the doodads in the environment, and the overall 'feel' is the same if you don't look too close.

* Sony's consoles seem to always display darker by default than MS's. I don't understand why for the purposes of comparison they can't pump up the brightness.

* With all the furore about Xbox One being 720p and PS4 being 900p (which doesn't sound too bad but is about 50% more pixels to the PS4), there doesn't seem to be a large diference in detail. If anything the environmental effects seem slightly better on the Xbox One.

Maybe I've been playing these games for so damn long that my brain is rather saturated with graphics, but to be honest, if it wasn't side by side, I wouldn't have even noticed a bloody difference.

It's the same on the PC when folks go on and on about how much better a game looks with graphics set to ultra compared to medium -- as soon as any action starts on screen, any difference in looks goes straight out the window.

The combination of fast-paced gameplay and high-quality visuals just doesn't work for me. My brain can't hack it anymore. BF3/4 look absolutely staggering as long as I'm not playing myself, but once I take control, it looks just like BF2:BC.

It is an interesting comparison, but as RedSky notes, not really fair.

Part of the problem is the game is designed to work on the 360/PS3 as well as next gen systems/PCs, and that need will hold it back. Once they stop aiming at the 360/PS3 compatibility, it should improve a bunch, then another generation or two for them to really start optimizing things. Compare BF4 One/PS4 to BF6 or BF7 on One/PS4 and I'm sure we'll see improvements by then... and more noticeable jump from the 360/PS3.

You can't put these side-by-side and assume that you're seeing the best of each platform. It's really just a faster computer... so it would be the same as taking a PC game and comparing 'med' and 'ultra' settings. If you compare GAMES from the launch of a console to the launch of the next gen, there will be a bigger difference as game studios figure out how far they can push the hardware and no longer have to support the older platform. The ceiling for what can be done has just been raised... that's all.

That being said, whatever was being used to get those peeling paint-chips on the door (looked better than a regular normal map) are pretty impressive on the new console.

Meh, playing FPS on a console is fail anyways.

GPCGMR* FTW!

* glorious pc gaming master race

*nsfw

What about PC/Windows port?

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by ant.

To me, the new tech looks a lot better !! and the xbox one looks better than the ps4... this is the first comparison I've seen where it stands out. It looks like "getting a new pair of glasses" to me, there is a lot more detail than the old tech.

Yes, some scenes looked closer than others but overall, this is some real progress.

@radx / @RFlagg

Agree the difference is hard to notice if you're not directly comparing, and that building for cross-gen compatibility is probably a big limiting factor.

I'm almost a bit concerned (because I have AMD shares) that this will hit console sales once the initial pre-order fervour dies down. Not from these kind of comparisons but from in-store demos being underwhelming.

The 360/PS3 jump seemed much more noticeable. It might take 4K and widespread adoption of larger TVs, assuming the next-gen can even pump this out at 30 FPS, to really validate it. The fact that neither can do BF4 above 900p isn't exactly promising ...

bought bf4 tonight after seeing this... and it does look and play damn well on my pc with geforce 570 and 2560x1600

hang on, you're running BF4 2560x1600 ... on a 570?
What's the frame rate like?