Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin has finally come forward to explain the disparities in resolution between the Xbox One and Playstation 4 versions of Call of Duty Ghosts.
You may remember this tweet from Rubin only a few days ago, confirming the PS4 version is native 1080p, while the Xbox One version is 720p upscaled to 1080p. He also stresses that not only does the game look good on both consoles, but that they have managed to make both versions hit a full 60 FPS.
In this interview, Rubin clarifies that development for both consoles took a very long time, and they were in close discussions with Xbox One people throughout. Since production started before the specs were finalized, they did have to deal with slight tweaks and adjustments to account for new information throughout production.
Now, the decision to make the Xbox One version did not boil down to any one particular issue. Throughout development, they were going for 1080p and 60 FPS for both consoles, and felt that they were going to hit that breakthrough. Infinity Ward was focused on making the best game that was possible for each system, and Rubin reasserts that the game looks so good you would not even notice if you put them side by side. (Yes, this is directly contradicting our own editorial on the 720p/1080p resolution issue.)
Ultimately, Rubin nails it down to the differences the two consoles had in terms of resource allocation, and that mastering how to optimize their game on both platforms could have kept them working on it for much longer.
In the end, Rubin hopes that they can improve overall development with the next Call of Duty, and concludes by saying making the 1st game on a new console is quite simply a challenge.