The first question is whether this actually matters. The answer is yes, it matters. Admittedly, some people are more sensitive to graphical fidelity than others. But double the detail is a substantial difference by any metric.

That said, when there is a difference with a given game, it may not always be 720p vs 1080p. Hold that thought.

What's important to understand up front is that 1080p on an HDTV doesn't outstrip the acuity of the human eye at normal viewing distances. This is what Apple means when it talks of 'retina' displays. It means from normal viewing distances, the human eye doesn't resolve individual pixels.

But if you have decent vision, a 1080p HDTV isn't a 'retina' display. Which is why 4K displays looks miles better than 1080p displays. And in turn 720p doesn't look as sharp as 1080p.

So what do we think overall? On balance, Xbox One games won't look quite as good as PS4 games. However the difference is not going to be complete earth shattering. It will be relatively subtle. The PS4 will look that little bit sharper.

In that sense, you probably know who you are already. If you're a sucker for super-detailed graphics, there can be only one choice. PS4. For everyone else, it's a more marginal decision. But make no mistake. Whatever advatnage PS4 has at launch, it will largely maintain for the life of both consoles.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/ps4-vs-xbox-one-graphics-what-are-the-differences-and-do-they-matter--1195580?src=rss&attr=all

Let's get this out of the way: 1080p is superior to 720p, in every way. It's a higher resolution with almost double the amount of pixels. Don't let the marginal-looking 300~ difference fool you, 1080p is equivalent to 1920x1080, while 720 is 1280x720. It's simple math: the numbers are bigger. The bigger the better, and the more pixels you get.

As it is, Call of Duty: Ghosts has been confirmed to run at a full 1080p on the PlayStation 4, while its counterpart on the Xbox One runs at 720p, upscaled to 1080p. What that means is the pixels are stretched out to make it fit 1080p. By doing so, you're going to get some blurry looking textures.

http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/18441/article/1080p-is-clearly-better-than-720p-but-why-is-the-media-downplaying-it/

A certain corner of the game-focused Internet has been busy counting pixels this week, scrutinizing statements, screenshots, and videos for evidence that either the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One is providing a clearly superior graphical experience at launch. After examining all the available evidence, it seems clear that the PlayStation 4 versions of launch games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts enjoy a slight graphical advantage over their Xbox One cousins. It also seems equally clear, to me, that the difference just isn't that big a deal—unless you plan on playing games while looking through a magnifying glass.

Examining the video a foot or two away from a PC monitor doesn't really mimic the way console gamers play games, though. For that, you're going to have to back up from your monitor at least a couple of long paces. Watch the video again from this farther vantage point. Can you still make out the differences? Even if you can, are they as significant?

Whether a gain in output resolution is noticeable to the human eye depends on three things: the pixel count, the screen size, and, crucially, the distance from the screen. The value of an increase in raw pixels goes down as the screen size gets smaller and as you get farther from the display.

Digital Trends has calculated the distances and screen sizes where various resolutions actually matter. If your living room TV is 10 feet away from your seat, you need a TV a bit larger than 50 inches to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p. If you're 12 feet away, you need a screen larger than 60 inches.

Viewing distances aside, we're reaching a point of somewhat diminishing returns when it comes to improving a gaming image just by throwing more pixels at it. Back in the '80s, the jump in resolution between the Atari 2600 and the NES was about the same pure pixel ratio as the jump from 720p to 1080p, but it provided a much more noticeable effect on image quality (even if you discount the NES' wider simultaneous color palette and larger character sprites). The jump from 720p to 1080p is much less noticeable, even up close, than the jump from 480p to 720p that made Wii games look like muddy, washed-out relics compared to their Xbox 360/PS3 brethren.

It's hard to look at the Xbox One's technically "inferior" 720p output with the same kind of practical concern as those inter-console resolution comparisons of the past. Resolution aside, the games look practically identical, with similar textures, apparent polygon counts, frame rates, and particle effects (like smoke). The small aliasing difference due to the resolution pales in comparison to the similarities in the overall look and feel of both versions.

None of this is to ignore the actual differences in resolution between the PS4 and Xbox One versions of at least a couple high-profile, multiplatform launch games. If you're the kind of person who isn't happy unless his gaming rig generates the highest raw benchmark numbers, the PS4 seems to be your console of choice for the time being (though, really, a high-end PC still wins out on this score). If you're the kind of person who values actual gameplay, though, choose your next console based on the games. You can feel secure in the knowledge that, graphically, there doesn't seem to be much practical, noticeable difference in performance.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/10/op-ed-why-im-not-too-worked-up-about-athe-next-gen-console-resolution-wars/

How Call of Duty and Battlefield changed the console war.

While Digital Foundry has yet to see either next-gen version of Call of Duty, our experience with Battlefield 4 demonstrates that you can easily see the visual difference between them. The Xbox One version holds up well given the gulf in resolution, but it doesn't require a pixel counter to tell that the PS4 game is crisper and cleaner either. At last week's Battlefield 4 review event in Stockholm, we noted that the resolution change from one version to the next was obvious to many of the press in attendance, with some even suggesting on-site that the PS4 version was operating at native 1080p when its actual resolution was 1600x900.

The reality for Microsoft is that the raw spec differential it has battled against is not only borne out in what is arguably the most technologically advanced multi-platform game of the next-gen launch, but the gulf actually increases on a title that, on the face of it, isn't pushing boundaries to anything like the same degree.

However, the hardware make-up itself could be more troublesome for multi-platform developers in the longer term, despite Microsoft's outline of how the Xbox One tech operates and the theoretical advantages it chose to highlight. In our In Theory piece, we could only address the teraflop difference - we couldn't measure the impact of Xbox One's reduction in memory bandwidth, and we certainly couldn't factor in what was then the big unknown: the controversial 32MB of Embedded Static RAM (ESRAM) built into the Xbox One's central processor.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-resolutiongate-the-fallout

A slight difference between two versions of the same game is all NeoGAF needs – there are countless threads on the web’s biggest games forum comparing the different versions of Battlefield 4 and Call Of Duty: Ghosts already. The thread based on Rubin’s tweet alone stretches out to, at the time of writing, 70 pages and 3,446 individual posts. Remember, this is a discussion about barely noticeable difference in two versions of the same videogame. The internet, ladies and gentlemen.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/ps4-vs-xbox-one-in-praise-of-the-ludicrous-magnificent-resolution-wars/

Madword said:

Just waiting for Eurogamer to have an article saying it doesn't matter… just to round it off…lol