Eh? Are we talking about single-player AAA console games? Because the majority of those are still 30 FPS. GTA, RDR, God of War (offers an unlocked mode but was designed for 30 FPS), Spider-Man, Detroit, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch_Dogs, Uncharted, Last of Us, Horizon, etc. Basically, games that rely on realistic and cinematic presentations stick with 30 FPS and I don't see that changing.
For multiplayer games, 60 FPS has become much more standard because those focus more on gameplay and less on presentation. For single-player AAA, not so much.
You're compacting a lot of games into a single set. Take some of your examples year by year. In 2016, Watch_Dogs 2, Uncharted 4, and Far Cry Primal were 30fps, sure. But Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, Doom 2016, Titanfall 2, and Battlefield 1 were all 60fps. And all bleeding edge games with extremely expensive production values. Most of those games dominated the sales charts. Infinite Warfare was basically the best selling game of the year.
Year after year DICE and Activision and Bethesda release stunning singleplayer campaigns that run at 60fps. EA released THREE singleplayer campaigns that ran at 60fps in 2016. That's in addition to their evergreen FIFA series being, naturally, 60fps. EA did not embrace 60fps until the 8th generation. They had stuff like Nightfire and TimeSplitters back in the 6th gen that were 60fps, but they were the exceptions. Battlefield 3 was a crossgen turning point. 30fps on last gen consoles. 60fps on next gen consoles. And then every Battlefield (and Battlefront, and Titanfall) after that was 60fps in both SP and MP. We have seen a huge shift. DICE and Activision are the proof that you can make 60fps games and also push bleeding edge visual tech. Battlefield is particularly notable for being 60fps and offering huge singleplayer levels with high levels of destruction. If you want your games to be 60fps, you can make them 60fps. And the biggest publishers in the world are making them 60fps because they see value in that. They're not copping out and making the MP 60fps and the SP 30fps.
Square also released Final Fantasy XV, which runs at a somewhat wobbly 60fps on Pro/X.
With the introduction of the PS4 Pro we saw games like Hitman 2016 trying to hit 60fps, something the X managed way better. (It goes without saying Hitman 2 this year is also 60fps.) Go back a year. 2015's The Witcher 3 became a 60fps game with the arrival of the Xbox One X. Rise of The Tomb Raider from 2015 was ported to other platforms and was 60fps on Pro/X. (Shadow of the Tomb Raider is also 60fps.) Gears of War 4 was released in 2016, and became 60fps with the arrival of the X. And of course other 2015 titles were 60fps including Battlefront, Wolfenstein: TOB, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and Battlefield: Hardline.
We come forward to 2017. Wolfenstein II, Battlefront II, Resident Evil 7, and Call of Duty: WWII, which was a particularly insane sales titan, were all 60fps. Underdog NieR: Automata was also 60fps. Super Mario Odyssey was 60fps. Nioh was 60fps. Sniper Elite 4 was 60fps on Pro. The Evil Within 2 had a 60fps mode on Pro/X. You know, there are not a lot of AAA games released each year when you think about it. The major publishers have atrophied hardcore. Most of EA's output in 2017 was sports games. Most of which were 60fps, mind you.
2018 is a little atypical. Battlefield V runs at 60fps and has a very pretty and underrated campaign, but it didn't tear up the sales charts. Black Ops 4 is 60fps and prints money, but is missing its campaign this year. FIFA made huge money and is 60fps. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was 60fps, but unfortunately sold middlingly. And of course Rockstar game along with RDR2 which runs at 30fps on Pro and X and chugs alarmingly on the other consoles.
Look to next year. Resident Evil 2: Remake will be 60fps on at least some console platforms. Devil May Cry V will be 60fps. Bioware are considering a 60fps mode for Anthem on Pro/X. Rage 2 will be 60fps on Pro/X at least. Doom: Eternal will be 60fps. Gears 5 will be 60fps. Wolfenstein Youngblood will likely be 60fps just like every other Wolfenstein game. These are high profile games. If Activision have Modern Warfare 4 in the wings full of nostalgia bait, it will sell bazillions of copies. And its 60fps campaign will be beautiful and very 60fps. (On Pro and X at least. The older consoles are starting to wheeze.) Given EA's trends, that Respawn Star Wars game will probably be 60fps. Titanfall 3, if it is coming in 2019, will also be 60fps.
Microsoft are firmly pushing 60fps in their first party stuff. EA push 60fps in their high profile stuff. Activision's two biggest cash cows, games that define gaming for huge numbers of people, are 60fps. There are a huge number of games from across the various AAA publishers -- EA, Activision, Bethesda, Square -- that offer 60fps on the higher end consoles or even all models. And these are not games with dated graphics. These are some of the most visually impressive games on the market.
Sony does their own thing. They locked Uncharted 4's campaign at 30fps later in development and left MP at 60fps. Other publishers wouldn't do that. You don't see Activision releasing a Call of Duty where the MP is 60fps and the campaign is 30fps. The campaigns are always 60fps. God of War having a 60fps mode is nothing to sneeze at. You will see more of this from Sony. The industry at large has warmed to performance modes just like N64 developers warmed to sticking a higher resolution mode in everything.
I think it's kinda telling that Sony basically don't make FPS games anymore, and the only FPS games they do make are VR titles that run at 60fps+ through sheer necessity. 30fps FPS games are glaring. People will buy them -- Far Cry 5 sold amazingly because it's ace -- but the lack of responsiveness in a market where basically every competitor is 60fps causes problems.
Look at Bethesda published non-30fps stuff Prey was 30fps. And the biggest complaint about the game was its input latency. Dishonored 2 was 30fps. Same complaint. People pick up Wolfenstein II and Doom 2016 and they're amazing and responsive and crisp. Then they pick up Dishonored 2 and have a "what is this incredibly sluggish nonsense?" moment. If consoles had better CPUs, Prey and Dishonored 2 would be 60fps games. It's those weak Jaguar CPUs holding them back. People, myself included, hope that the new CPU architectures they're using in the next line of consoles will mean that people who buy the high end Xbox or people who buy the PS4 will be playing games across the board in 60fps. Currently, a huge number of the most popular titles on the market are 60fps. And their popularity is significantly boosted by their 60fps responsiveness. (And they're often graphically stunning. It's not some if/or thing.) Resident Evil 7 being 60fps after RE6 ran in the low 20s on PS3/360, and Revelations 2 ran at a somewhat uneven 60fps on PS4/XBO -- this was a huge boost. RE7 feels good. And being 60fps also made PSVR conversion easier.
Go back to the seventh generation. In the AAA space, 60fps games were unicorns. Devs were struggling with games that ran in the low 20s, across the board. Far Cry 3 and 4 ran so badly the opening cutscene in Far Cry 3 chugged along at 15fps on the PS3. Now Ubi's games run at a smooth 30fps for the most part. (And Siege is 60-120fps+) And once they have better CPUs in the next Xbox and PS5, they will push framerates higher just as they currently push resolution and asset fidelity higher due to increased GPU headroom.
Even the moderate CPU boosts of the Pro and X have caused a significant number of games to incorporate 60fps modes. The next series of consoles will have GPUs moderately better than the Pro and X, but CPUs that are astronomically better. It will be a game changer. Consoles have been held back by these weak, weak CPUs -- and despite this heaps of the top selling games each year -- a majority in some years -- are 60fps. The 60fps games put together sometimes sell more than the rest of the chart put together. Naysayers said it wouldn't happen, that publishers and developers don't care about framerate, but it did happen. Unless you live in a bubble and only play Sony third person cinematic games, the AAA industry -- including story-driven singleplayer games -- is overflowing with titles that support 60fps on consoles. And Epic are pushing hard for more developers to target 60fps on Unreal 4. A lot of engine features they've been adding over the past year have been specifically designed to pursue that goal, and they're using Fortnite as an example for developers to aspire to. A game people once thought was never going to work at 60fps due to CPU bottlenecking.
It's kinda interesting how PUGB is only finally running at a reasonably stable 30fps on consoles. But its mobile phone spinoff, PUBG Mobile, which has bazillions of players, runs at 60fps on high end phones. This was unimaginable a few years ago. Fortnite of course runs at 60fps on high end iPhones.
