We all know next gen will be about 4K30 or any resolution close to that at 30fps, except for the few games that run at 60fps. 30fps has been the standard for many decades and it won't change anytime soon. You could call this the "standard mode".

Now next gen Sony and MS could give the option in console settings, to enable a "performance mode". This means that the console will lower the resolution, on a per game basis, until it can consistently reach 60fps. The resolution could drop as low as 1080p in this mode. Having half the resolution, or at worst, 4x as low, will definitely put a ton of games to target 60fps. We're seeing a performance mode more and more in games and I hope it becomes a system wide feature in next gen.

Benefits:

-no more patches per game

-once Pro consoles come out, performance mode won't have to drop resolutions as severely, and run the games closer to the original 4K.

-people that want 60fps have the option

An example how this would work, take the benchmark here of the R9 Fury X just to illustrate the performance gain going from 4K to 1440p

Going from ~30fps at 4K, to targeting ~60fps at 1440p or lower. This could be what next gen could offer.

Maybe for simple titles; there will always be games that max out hardware.

I am still waiting for the sub-720p30 titles from AAA publishers.
Wring out every last drop of CPU/GPU juice, out of the consoles.

I honestly hope not.
My expectations will be high in 2020. It's 2020 remember.

Well. Dead Rising 3 was 720P, 30fps, Titanfall 2 dropped below 720P on the Xbox One.

And wasn't ARK Survival Evolved sub 720P/30fps in some instances on one of the consoles?

We might see it become a more frequent thing in the next few years as developers start to make the Xbox One X and Playstation 4 Pro shine, whilst making cutbacks to the technically inferior base machines.

Dead Rising 3 was early in the life cycle of the system, Titanfall 2 targets 60FPS and I don't trust ARK's team to optimise their title well enough.

The best example I can think of would be Quantum Break.
720p30 as a first party title, from a talented studio.

I am curious how this would be that much different from the dynamic resolution techniques employed on certain games today in order to maintain a target frame rate? Also, from my understanding, many engines already support dynamic resolution. I don't think it would be necessary or even appropriate to enforce dynamic resolutions on every game either by making the console do it automatically or by setting it as a standard that games must follow in order to be able to release on the platform. The reason is that certain devs might want to prioritize visuals over frame rate in certain games and might not like the idea of the console automatically prioritizing a higher frame rate. Although in reality, I think it is best that devs build games for both high resolution versus low frame rate and lower resolution versus higher frame rate scenarios and let the user choose (barring certain genres that require 60 FPS like fighting games and racing games).

As for pro consoles running games at a higher resolution, that is already something many PS4 Pro and One X's can do. The only reason many of these games need to be patched is because the games themselves were created before the devs had any idea that pro consoles would be coming.

Halo 5 is a great example of a game that employs dynamic resolution and where the resolution auto-adjusts on the One X without a patch. On the base XONE (S) the game rarely reaches full 1080P, however, on the One X (even without a patch) it will run at full 1080P. Of course this game was patched to support dynamic 4K, because at the time of its release MS probably did not know they would release the One X and so did not include 4K assets nor did they believe it to be necessary to let the resolution auto-adjust upwards beyond 1080P (again because they did not know about the One X at that point).

In the next generation (or even partially in the current generation, since the pro systems have now been released), I can imagine devs increasing the ceiling of their dynamic resolutions from 1080P to 4K . When run on a non-pro console these games will run at 1440P/1080P 60FPS and when run on premium system they will auto-adjust to 4K 60 FPS; and because the games are built with a higher resolution ceiling in mind, no patching will be required.

it wont happen because PS4 and Xbox One are the main platforms, perfomance is even better see Evil Within 1 vs 2, still 1080p better framerate

I think 60fps will be mandatory as i assume that sony will do an 180 like they always do with a new console, by targeting a stronger cpu over gpu unlike the PS4. It could be intel as they are probably tired with buying from the ame supplier who is also supplying the competition and doesnt care about outdoing the other console.

I can also see them putting a Cell processor too for full PS3 BC and physics based rendering.

The thing is also that Game Development comes to its end game, there isnt much better that could be done than Horizon Zero Dawn which already runs in 4K CB, the only thing they can and should improve is a framerate boost.

I'm sorry. Did you stipulate a cut-off date for the games you want mentioned? Otherwise that's called goalpost shifting. ;)

I never said anything to the contrary. I was listing it as it's resolution drops below 720P.

Well. It is 720P though, not below it.

PUBG seems to be plagued with massive FPS issues on Xbox, it will be interesting to see what they do to resolve it, possible cutback to resolution?

Yeah, you have a point on the goalpost shifting comment, but.
I think it is important to keep in mind the release date.
Dead Rising 4 was 900p on the same console, from the same developers, on the same engine (from what I can find).
I remember the Xbox One getting a late development GPU clock boost; something to keep in mind when talking about launch titles.

Quantum Break being 720p30 leads back into my original comment: "I am still waiting for the sub-720p30 titles from AAA publishers".
Quantum Break is a better example of a technical powerhouse when compared against Dead Rising 3, in my opinion.

PUBG will be very interesting to watch as it matures on the Xbox One family.
I doubt they will cut it down to 720p or below (nor do I think the visuals justify that kind of drop).
PUBG, looks to be CPU bottlenecked; at worst we will probably see a dynamic 900p - 1080p (or a locked 900p).

Some graphics effects are CPU intensive and will thus see benefit at a reduced rendering resolution.