Better graphics isn't enough. If you just increase the polygons, you will end up with better-looking characters, but that doesn't mean they'll look more "realistic." You need to improve the motion physics. And you also need to improve gameplay.

This is the point made by Glenn Entis, Academy-Award-winning senior VP and chief visual and technical officer for EA games (he was formerly CEO from Dreamworks Interactive). At the Montreal Games Summit, he used Final Fantasy as an example:

In Final Fantasy, the modelling fidelity was really better than the motion fidelity. In other words, when you looked at the models, they signalled an expectation to the audience that the motion couldn't deliver upon.

Alert the Final Fantasy fandom...
...and let the carnage commence.

An EA VP has dissed Final Fantasy for having unrealistic graphics. We can just imagine the chaos this is causing in RPG forums everywhere.

EA, on the other hand, has been hard at work to not only make characters photo-realistic, they're also making them move realistically. An example of how EA is achieving realism, according to Entis, is Tiger Woods PGA Tour (for the PC, Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, and PS3). Entis has proof that Tiger Woods PGA Tour has achieved realism: Tiger Woods couldn't tell he was looking at computer graphics.