It matters, but its far less important then some folks like to trumpet when in the end, its all about the games you want to play. Exclusives and if I want to play certain games with friends matter considerably more.

The difference from the comparisons I've seen are noticeable, but I wouldn't call them significant enough to alter the reasons above...yet.

To answer the question posed in the thread title: no, it doesn't matter. Fun matters.

Yes, it absolutely matters. I'll always buy the version with better resolution.

Sure, it matters, but it's probably the lowest thing on my list of things to care about when it comes to games. This has been the case for as long as I remember (PC gaming being a bit of an exception 10 years ago, but that hobby has shrunk considerably for me). What I care about is which games I can play, and whether or not they're any fun.

This is why my wallet is doomed, because I'll eventually own all three major systems again, just like last-gen. There's always some kind of exclusive title that I care about enough to jump in. See, it's about the actual games. Games are fun. I want to play fun games. Resolution does not make a game fun. Resolution can only make a game not-fun if it's purposefully set to the lowest possible settings. Good thing devs don't do that on consoles, because that's stupid, and not fun. They set it as high as the overall balance allows.

To that point, frame rate has much more of an effect on the level of fun a game has for me. Games that dip to noticeably low rates tend to get increasingly frustrating. On modern consoles, I would hope that 30fps is achieved regularly, if not always. 60fps is a nice perk, but a solid 30fps is my preference. Dips to 20 or 15 can ruin the experience, and thus ruin the fun.

So you only game on PC?

Took me a second. Well done. +1 sir.

A much bigger deal than resolution would be which console is easier for developers to program for and push harder. 360 reaped nice benefits from being the easier to develop for console, but this time it seems like Sony's the one that made their system easier to push further. Should be interesting to see how this shakes out a few years down the line.

One interesting conspiracy theory is how the new trailer for Watchdogs looks like shit compared to the original E3 gameplay trailer. Almost like they had to dumb it down once it went multi-console.

I'm curious how the PC version looks. I've seen PC games look as good as the reveal trailer, but the newer footage does look like a cross generational hybrid - though Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed IV looked a little better.

If it's available on PC, that's the version I usually buy.

Are you out of NES games already?

They are claiming it looks unbelievable with the highest settings applied. It will run at 4K but I don't think the GPUs are ready to push that yet. I'm also not buying a first year 4K monitor. Next year with bring my monitror upgrade and two years for GPU.

I don't think it matters. Or maybe I don't care. My Sony fanboy friends always bring up the resolution first when they want to tell me how much better their system is than the Xbone.

I never noticed the difference on my 42" LED set but 720p 360/PS3 games didn't look so hot on my projector. That is probably the only situation where I'd be cautious.

What's funny about "resolution gate" is the Microsoft has been mostly upfront about the resolution reporting. Just recently it was reported that Killzone's MP was not truly 1080p. Why this was just being reported recently I do not know. Does it really matter? No.

Digital Foundry videos are a good side be side comparisons, better than IGNs. IGN had the gamma on the XO turned way up for Thief, crushing the blacks. Yet when I watch Upload videos of the same game, it looks nothing like that.

Some upcoming games like Wolfenstein and Murdered are native 1080p for both the PS4 and the XO. Watchdogs will be 1080p for PS4 and 960p for XO, which isn't terribly different. So clearly it can be done for both.

It all comes down to games ultimately. I find FPS games more fun with the XO than PS4 controllers, especially where the sticks and triggers are placed and feel. The XO triggers feel more natural than the DS4. Maybe it will take getting used to, but Warframe just feels awkward. I also like the bumpers on the XO controller because I can easily push them without having to use my fingers, just the side of my hands due to the girth of the controller. With other types of games, it doesn't really matter to me.

To me, it seems MP is better on XO, while PS4 will come out with some great single player exclusives. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have online issues PS4 more than the XO thus far. Maybe others haven't had any problems.

A game can look as pretty as can be, but if it isn't fun, what's the point?

The difference between 720p vs 1080p is very noticeable to me when it comes to movies. But to say that 720p vs 1080p is a similar to DVD vs Blu ray is just wrong. DVD is 480p.

If it's a question of whether or not to buy a game, 720p vs 1080p isn't going to sway me. If it's a question of which version to buy, and one is 720p while one is 1080p, that may sway me. However, if it's 720p at 60fps, and 1080p at 30fps or less, I'll take the lower resolution and higher framerate. Also, if there are other technical problems like screen tearing, that will factor in as well.

It's not a 1:1 thing like it is with movies. There are too many elements to take into account to simply say that a game running at 720p will always be inferior to a game running 1080p.

from Joystiq:


Witcher dev says 1080p vs 720p is 'a PR differentiation'

by S. Prell @SamPrell (6 days ago)


We're not sure at what resolution The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will run on consoles, but Marcin Iwinski, co-founder of developer CD Projekt, doesn't seem to believe it matters much. "It's more of a PR differentiation," Iwinski told Eurogamer.

"We had the debate in the studio about it and actually asked our tech guys to explain how it works," Iwinski said. "And they sent me some complicated graphs that if I have this size of the screen, and I sit one meter or two meters from it, then I might be able to see the difference."

Iwinski said he and his team are still working on maximizing each system's power, but that there were no plans to place artificial restrictions to make the game run the same across platforms. "It's against our values to dumb anything down for the sake of some business arrangement," he said.

Xbox One: Resolution doesn't matter
PS4: Resolution matters and mine is waaaay bigger.

Gamer: Didn't I already play a game just like this last gen?

How Eurogamer.net spins that same above article:

The Witcher 3 may run slightly better on PS4 than Xbox One

"It's more of a PR differentiation," says CD Projekt.

Does it matter? Yes. Is it one of the first twenty things I look for when deciding upon a game? Nope.

Along that line : Do you have both systems? And if so, is it the deciding factor for which system you buy a multi-platform game?
For me, the answer is usually "yes" because usually the other differentiating factors are less significant to me (i.e. Trophies vs Achievements, which systems my friends have for leaderboard activities). I bought Trial Fusion on the PS4 because it supposedly ran better on it. I pre-ordered Wolfenstein on the PS4 because with no reviews to reference, I went with the safer bet for resolution and frame rate. I have no animosity towards the XO and enjoy seeing my longtime online friends on Live, but unless the game has a huge multiplayer component (like a Call of Duty game or maybe Destiny), I still keep leaning PS4 versions because they seem to have the better specs, though I readily admit that I'm not sure I could see a difference anyway.

I do have both systems. I've been buying multiplatformers for the PS4 based on specs and that I like the controller, except for a few that I've stuck to Xbox on because that's where my online friends are. I have purchased substandard games because of friends. Friends > P's.

I wasn't sure where to post this, but this thread makes the most sense I guess.

So, I've been using the Xbox Music app while playing games lately. The app runs on the right side in a small bar (because MS is too dumb to let it run in the background), and the game runs in a slightly reduced-size window on the left.

For the reason of this post, I grabbed a Forza clip from google. Here's what it looks like on any standard 16x9 screen, without any apps snapped:


Here's how it looks when an app is snapped on a standard 16x9 screen:


Then I realized... "Shit. I have a 2.35:1 CIH projector screen. Why the fuck don't I just zoom in?" So on MY screen, it looks kind of like this:


The end-result being that, whether or not I listen to music, I can have the game's actual size (height and width) on my screen be exactly the same:
- If I'm not using Xbox Music, I'm using the middle 16x9 part of my screen only, and the game is 45" high by 80" wide.
- If I AM using Xbox Music, my projector zooms in and crops the top and bottom, so I'm using the full 2.35:1 of my screen, and the game is still 45" high by 80" wide, but further to the left so the snapped app can run on the side.

BUT, since this conversation is about resolution specifically, here's my point:
- In "normal" mode, my games are displayed at 1920x1080 (upscaled from whatever Frankenstein resolution it is actually using, whether it's 792p, 900p, or true 1080p)
- When an app is snapped, my games display at roughly 1440x810, and they're obviously doing some crazy scaling to display it that way, regardless of what the native resolution is.

In both cases, at least with my limited experience, the game appears identical to my eyes. I'm sitting about 8 or 9 feet away. Effectively, whichever option I choose, the difference in resolution does not matter to me when playing games; they're close enough and the games are still fun. And yes, I can tell the difference between 480i DVDs and 1080p Blu-rays. That's not the point at all here.

The only issue is that I don't think the Xbox Music app is optimized to run alongside games very well, as it occasionally glitches out or causes some minimal screen tearing. This does not happen when the app is running alone or with other apps that don't use a lot of CPU/GPU. I'm not too concerned about it, though.

And when MS lets me use Xbox Music in the background, I won't have to do any of this zooming business, but 792p, 900p, 1080p, etc. still won't make any difference to me.

tl;dr version
Whether I'm playing my 1080p games at 1080p or 810p, or my 792p games at 1080p or 810p, I don't see a difference while playing when the height and width are the same and I'm sitting at my standard distance away. I'm sure if I paused and took a really close look, I'd see something, but why would I bother? Why would I pause it to look at jaggies or whatever?

*I own the XO, but not the PS4. I was going to buy the PS4 in March/April, but the Canadian price went up to $450, so I got cold feet. I will absolutely buy the PS4 when The Order: 1886 is out, and at that point, I'll just buy whichever version of cross-platform games I can get a better price on (digitally. Discs are dead to me).

I can notice the difference pretty easily.

But I play on a 106" screen. That isn't the norm. I am a mega nerd.

It's really a combination of how close you sit plus the size of the screen that determines if you can notice a difference in resolution.

Most people sit pretty far away from an HDTV so different resolutions may not be noticeable.

With a PC monitor, you tend to sit very close to the screen so you can notice a bigger difference between resolutions.

Tablets have even higher resolutions, and you generally have them even closer to your face so the higher resolution is noticeable.