@ NJ5

Does it really matter if the game plays well and looks great? In the end that's all that matters...

Plenty of PS360 games are below 720p, and many of them still stutter even at that resolution. PS3/360 developers must be focusing on the wrong things, because I'd much rather play a graphically worse game than having jitter every time the console feels a little overwhelmed.

Source?  I see the resolutions epsilon72 listed as 1080i resolutions while the 1080p standard is 1920x1080.

I give that post a 9.4.

720p
30fps MAX

playstation 4 might be 1080p 30fps

Not necessarily.  Developers are always going to try to find the resolution at which their game looks the best without sacrificing graphic quality.  To keep making competitive graphics, developers are going to favor pushing the envelope of detail and effects over reaching the higher resolution.  So, the question becomes, do you want an amazing looking game at 720p/30fps or do you want a so-so looking game, compared to it's competition, at 1080p/60fps?  Since console gamers are still kinda new to the resolution comparison party, many don't realize the give and take to go with graphics when people are developing games at the limit of a console's ability (or their programming ability for that console).

Think of it with these bars.

<low graphics -----------------|------------------high graphics>

<low resolution ----------------|------------------ high resolution>

<low famerate -----------------|-------------------high framerate

Every time you increase one of the above, the others fall.  You can't increase all at the same time.  Advances in hardware make it possible for games to perform better overall, but that doesn't mean that the above decision changes, it just means that the limit of what they can do has been moved and they are going to try to produce games at that limit.  Decisions must be made as to which suits the game better.

I give that post a 9.5.

Definitely.  With PC shooters, I turn settings down until I get 60fps no matter how it looks because playability is always more important to /gamers/ than 'pretty'.

I get very frustrated -- Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy both run 60fps constantly.  Why can't my 360 games?

Generally true, but it depends on your bottlenecks.  If your CPU is the bottleneck and you have spare fill rate, then you could increase the resolution without significantly affecting the other two bars.  There are various other considerations (memory availability/bandwidth, etc).  You have to balance the number of rendering passes you make, the detail rendered, the ways in which you squeeze efficiency out of the game and your frame rate.

A good rule of thumb for any top-end title is that the framerate should be consistently 60fps.  This is simply a matter of quality -- do you want to add a little flash to lower the quality of your game?  Casual shooters may do this, as casual gamers will care less about poorer control (caused by lower framerates), lower response, and less smoothness.

Must've felt good to start a thread wherein people say, "no, KZ2 won't be x."  Like it matters.  We've all seen it run.

@OP: That seems beyond unlikely from where I'm sitting. If Polyphony, Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft and other mammoths haven't done it yet, I highly doubt that a 2nd grade dev like GG will pull it off.

Hasn't happened with any of Sony's games. ;)

Resistance, Uncharted, etc. are all native 720p, and the entirety of SCEWWS is sharing tech to improve ps3 development across the board.  GG has referenced both Insomniac and Sony Santa Monica when discussing their engine tech, actually.