I've heard about realtime raytracing for decades, and it regularly shown off in demos, but it never materialized in commercial engines. Even now, when we have realtime graphics that look better than movies from 20 years ago, we are still using rasterization, and it shows no sign of stopping.
Raytracing doesn't mean better. It is just a different solution to the rendering equation, and what it does better than rasterization (mostly refraction) is not worth the additional cost. Especially considering that it won't help with global illumination, which is the big thing right now.
The closest thing we have to a "perfect" rendering technique is pathtracing, but for something that isn't a sphere or 8 cubes in a box, we are far, far from realtime rendering.
Raytracing doesn't mean better. It is just a different solution to the rendering equation, and what it does better than rasterization (mostly refraction) is not worth the additional cost. Especially considering that it won't help with global illumination, which is the big thing right now.
The closest thing we have to a "perfect" rendering technique is pathtracing, but for something that isn't a sphere or 8 cubes in a box, we are far, far from realtime rendering.