Xbox One Vs. PS4: 1080p, 60FPS Debate Over PlayStation 4 Will ‘Xbone’ The ‘Halo 5’ Graphics Quality?

The Xbox One Vs. PS4 debate is just a continuation of the Sega versus Nintendo fanboy arguments, but the expectation of 1080p 60FPS performance for the next generation console platforms started as a marketing debacle for Microsoft that has transformed into a game developer headache. Could these unrealistic expectations actually be harmful to graphics quality over the next several years?

In a related report by the Inquisitr, many gamers were surprised when Assassin’s Creed: Unity was CPU bound on the PS4 and the supposedly slower Xbone managed to pull off higher average performance. But the PS4 Vs. Xbox One debate went to another level of craziness where the two consoles were pitted against each other — physically.

The latest trend in the video games industry is to do HD remakes that port older games to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with a graphics face lift. But even in the case of Halo: Master Chief Collection, the developers could not pull of the trick of having the Xbox One run at a constant 1080p, 60FPS. This is because game development tends to be a series of tradeoff decisions in regards to graphics quality versus performance.

In the case of Halo, 343 Studios made the conscious decision to allow gamers to switch between original and updated graphics without any loading time. The trade off was that the old graphics rendering had to occur concurrently in the background with the new graphics rendering, which came at a performance penalty. The game also experienced other issues, and in response some members of the gamer community chose to send death threats at Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor.

Besides occurrences like those, video game developers are very conscious of the gamer expectations for 1080p 60FPS performance and the whole Xbox One Vs. PS4 debate, with both Microsoft and Sony trying to persuade consumers they are offering the superior product. When the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer trailer was released, this effect became blatantly obvious since the trailer specifically advertised they were shooting for 60FPS.

According to Josh Holmes, 343 Industries’ Head of Internal Development, this required a shift in their development process.

“Coming to Xbox One we wanted to go and re-architect the engine,” said Holmes, according to Tech Radar. “We also made the decision to go to 60FPS which meant going back and re-engineering all our gameplay systems from the ground up to focus on that. So we’ve got new material system, new lighting system, new physics, new AI, dedicated servers … I was like ‘we’re definitely going 60FPS’ but there was debate from people across the team because there are always tradeoffs. When you’re going 60FPS you’re drawing twice as many frames, so that also means a real dedication and discipline throughout the team.”

Shooting for 60FPS is certainly understandable since Halo 5 is a first person shooter, where the difference between 30 and 60FPS can be felt through the game controller, not just the eye. But it really depends on what they mean by 60FPS. If they mean the average frame rate will be 60FPS, then it’s possible there will be the occasional hiccup where the framerate plummets and control of the game feels different. That’s a problem that has been plaguing the PlayStation 4, and in some cases the Xbox One port of a game has been framerate capped at 30FPS and the overall experience was better for it.

If the expectation is that 60FPS will be the minimum framerate then the only way to achieve that goal is through further graphics tradeoffs. 343 Studios head Josh Holmes already announced the Xbox One Halo 5 beta would be running at 720p and 60FPS, but the expectation is that the final product will reach 1080p via optimizations. But in the end, there’s no magic wand they can wave — so it’s possible they will be forced to go with 900p or sacrifice other graphics elements in order to achieve a higher resolution.

Do you think the Xbox One Vs. PS4 debate is harming the video game industry? Would you be happy with a 30FPS cap if it meant that overall graphics quality is improved?