In a revealing Develop column, Black Rock Studios technical director David Jefferies suggested that Microsoft has dropped its mandate for requiring a resolution of 1280×720, more commonly referred to as 720p, on Xbox 360. While the practice of up-scaling console efforts to higher resolution is not uncommon, this was previously done on a case by case basis. Now, it appears that Microsoft is allowing developers to make their own decisions on image quality comprises.

We are making a trade-off and saying that the screen resolution is more important to us than the quality of the anti-aliasing. This isn’t necessarily an entirely voluntary move because, until recently, Microsoft had a TCR insisting that games run at 1280×720 – providing you weren’t one of the lucky ones like Halo, who got it waived and ran at 1152×640, that is.

The motivation behind this decision is unknown, but we suspect it was made to give developers more freedom and worry less about adhering to specific standards. Of course, we’d like to see all 360 titles run at full 720p, but seeing as certain titles push the graphical envelope more than others, it isn’t always possible – comprises have to be made sometimes.

Microsoft’s new resolution [Develop]

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