http://www.oxm.co.uk/65535/kinect-sports-rivals-runs-at-1080p-resolution-is-important-but-not-the-whole-story-says-rare/
Kinect Sports Rivals runs at 1080p and 30 frames a second on Xbox One, OXM can confirm. According to Rare's executive producer Danny Isaac, earlier versions of Rivals offered a maximum resolution of 720p, but the developer was able to upgrade the game over the months to run at 960 and finally 1080p.
Speaking to OXM at a preview event today, Isaac also offered his thoughts on the tempestuous next gen resolution debate at large. The gist, for those heartily sick of the subject? Technical specifics matter, especially during a console's launch, but there's a lot more to a game than how many pixels it can push at once.
"We're at 1080p, but to be honest that was because our rendering guys just wanted to be at 1080p," he said, when I asked whether Rare had been affected by recent controversies. "I think when you look at the platforms, now more than ever it's going to be about - OK, the graphics and resolution are part of the story, but there's also the service you have, the intuitiveness of the sharing, the multiplayer aspects of it.
"Years ago, when I was a kid, it was all about how many polygons you could push around, and everyone was pixel-counting," he continued. "I think that's still important, but it's much less of the story than it used to be."
Last week it was discovered that neither Call of Duty: Ghosts nor Battlefield 4 run at native 1080p (often referred to as "true HD") on Xbox One - they run at 720p, upscaled to 1080p. This has caused no small amount of upset, despite Infinity Ward's reassurance that native 1080p is "very possible" on Xbox One, but just how much of the debate will really be felt at street level, I asked?
"I think everybody always looks at numbers," responded Isaac. "If you think about photography and cameras, it's just megapixels, megapixels, megapixels. Can anyone really tell the difference between a 41 megapixel shot and a 21 megapixel shot? Probably not.
"So there's that part, but I think ultimately it's going to be the whole experience [that people think about], and I think while Microsoft's done well with the Xbox previously, what they've done with Xbox One is to build out that service.
"It's going to be about supporting that box as it goes through its life, delivering those services and experiences, outside of just playing the game. With things like Game DVR, where you can upload your clips to the cloud. Stuff that we could only dream of last generation is going to be a reality this generation. I think that's really where the battle will be, but obviously initially everybody just wants to compare the numbers."
That's not to dismiss those for whom resolution is the more significant consideration, he qualified. "For some people that's going to be really really important. Some people will want to get high end PCs, and run at the highest settings they can, buy multi-thousand pound rigs to do that. But for myself personally, I'm more interested in the experience all around."
Xbox One games confirmed to run at 1080p include Fantasia: Music Evolved from Harmonix and Turn 10's near-offensively pretty Forza Motorsport 5.
For more on Kinect Sports Rivals, read my first look at the game's Preseason trial, which will be available alongside the Xbox One at launch on 22nd November.
