Well that's disappointing. I had hoped to play this on ps4 with the touch pad in crispy clear 1080p. The witcher 2 was made for controllers anyway and although it generally ran fine in 1080p on my pc, it also slowed down to sub 10fps at points. I'm not looking forward to hit the options again and again after turning a corner. I guess I'll get it after I get to upgrading my pc.

I didn't say Microsoft forces anything. I said they have a policy which I'm sure is a lot more lenient these days. They can't enforce it like they used to. This gen PS4 is curbstomping Xbox One and PS4 is the lead. Nothing would release for their console.

Would it surprise you if Microsoft was caught paying for "resolution parity" in a future multiplat title?

Yeppp then i will probably get the pc version cheap sometime after the ps4 copy.

I agree to the possibility of MS being responsible in holding some games back, but it's certainly not something they're doing universally. MS aren't responsible for every PS4 title that doesn't achieve 1080p :p That would make no sense.

BF4 ran at 900p vs 720p and WD at 900p(+ slightly better in-game PS4 visuals) vs 792p. The hardware gap between the PS4 and X1 is definitely significant (somewhere between a 30 - 60% real world performance advantage in favor of the PS4, linearly speaking), which results in that 900p vs 720p/792p difference. It certainly wouldn't linearly translate into a 720p vs 1080p difference, so obviously in this situation the X1 itself is not preventing 1080p on the PS4 version. Not unless MS asked them to gimp both versions

Both BF4 and WD could have been 1080p on the PS4 with better optimization (and 900p on the X1), but both appear to have been treated relatively equally in development, thus resulting in a difference that falls within the boundaries of their hardware differences. There are of course ups and downs in favor of both, but that's to be expected. Every developer will encounter a slightly difference level of ease/difficulty when working with a platform.

Agreed, parity clause does not mean res and fps parity. However it is likely to be a legit claim that PS4 can handle 1080p and that the developer made the games the same res and fps to keep MS happy. We already know MS is not happy for multiplats to release at a lower res than PS4. So it's not beyond reason that if the dev can't hit the same res on Xbox one even with MS help that MS will put pressure on to drop Ps4 res. It will be up to the dev to decide whether to cave in or not. 

We know MS was happy to slightly compromise fps for 1080p on Diablo III. 

Since Microsoft are their partner, it smells party clause

If an open world like Watch Dogs couldn't then I very much doubt that PS4 can easily get The Witcher III there. Yes there will be better optimization but we'll have to see. PC will be the main platform for this game. I don't get why you guys see PS4 as this ultimate console that can do everything PC can do.

If anyone actually expected this game to be 1080p...

Anyway, it's a PC title first and foremost. That's where the best visuals will be, easily. Even then, 900p would probably look great as well.

Please Google what the parity clause actually is -_-

Not surprising, they have been talking about limitations with the "next gen" consoles for a while now.

This is the most ambitious next gen game shown to date and the most beautiful. Watch dogs and Infamous don't hold a candle to this game and what it's aiming for so what does it matter if infamous or watch dogs could acheive 1080p? Other comments throwing CD under a bus because of the exclusive collectors edition on xbox need to stop as well, they are a great company and have shown that throughout the years with not only giving away free stuff but committing to no exclusive DLC for one platform over another and their stance on DRM. Get over yourself if you think they are just as bad as other companies.