DF have pointed out that both the XBone and PS4 versions are apparently running with the same assets and shadow resolutions as their mid-gen upgrades (PS4 Pro and OneX), meaning there has been very little optimization for the 2013 consoles.
Also, both the PS5 and SeriesX versions are just running the code for their respective mid-gens, just at higher framerates or dynamic resolutions. The RDNA2 consoles are probably just running emulated Polaris code.
In the end, this points to CDPR having focused their console efforts on the PS4 Pro and OneX first and foremost, and then planned to scale it up for the 2020 consoles and scale it down for the 2013 consoles (but never got enough time for this last part).
Which.. seems like a pretty terrible decision from the get-go, I think?
This is baseless speculation. Most games appear to target the original consoles and simply allow the mid gen refreshes to scale up resolution and framerate, perhaps sometimes with a few tweaked settings.
There's no basis for assuming CB2077 hasn't done the same. The fact that both versions use the same assets is evidence of nothing. Performance on the mid gen consoles is already insufficient so why would the devs add more taxing assets and effects on top of that rather than just focusing on getting performance to where it needs to be and resolution out of the basement?
None of which matters to the point I made. The UE5 demo just looks much better than anything out there, and for whatever the engine limitations it might still have, by the time the games made on it start shipping, I'm sure devs will make up some trickeries to hide them.
What matters is the demo looks next-gen to the untrained eye. And the market is driven / games are purchased mostly by untrained eyes, not experts.
But again, it's just a tech demo. Why are you comparing a tech demo that might be representative of game graphics in a few years to a game that is released and playable today?
And also, why are you implying that a maxed out CB2077 doesn't look "next gen" to untrained eyes? Are you seriously suggesting that this doesn't look seriously impressive?