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By Rob Crossley on Friday 11th Jul 2014 at 8:51 PM EST

One of the key Xbox One executives in the UK believes the company needs to overcome the perception that Sony's PS4 displays certain games at superior resolutions and frame rates.

Xbox UK marketing boss Harvey Eagle told CVG that, while he doesn't personally see a meaningful graphical difference between PS4 games and their Xbox One equivalents, he does understand the negative publicity has become an issue.

"I think it's a perception challenge, absolutely," Eagle told CVG.

"If you put third-party games side-by-side that are running at slightly different resolutions or frame rates, then unless you are using a screen that's more than 60 inches big, I defy you to really see the difference. I personally struggle to see the difference."

Nevertheless, Eagle believes the Xbox One team needs to overcome the challenge, adding that an updated console operating system will give developers more GPU resources.

"It's important, certainly. It's something the media has certainly picked up on. If that leads to the perception that one machine is more powerful than another, then it's important, and we're trying to allow developers to bring games to Xbox One at the highest resolution and frame rate as possible."

"There is some GPU power that can be allocated to Kinect that we're now freeing up for developers if they want to increase the fidelity of their games. I want to point out though that this is absolutely up to the developer on how they deploy the power."

PlayStation 4 versions of next generation games occasionally run at a higher resolution, and smoother frame-rate, than the Xbox One equivalent. Games already shown to be superior on PS4 include Call of Duty Ghosts, Diablo 3, Tomb Raider Definitive Edition, Thief, Metro Redux and Metal Gear Ground Zeroes.

It is expected that, as time goes on and developers find more ways to save hardware resources, the differences between Xbox One and PS4 versions of multiplatform games will narrow.

In June, Microsoft outlined how a new Xbox One developer kit (XDK) will give game creators access to additional system resources that were previously allocated to Kinect. About ten per cent of each system's GPU is reserved for Kinect, which now can be turned off to reduce overhead.

With Xbox One evolving into a system that appears even more similar to PS4, Eagle was asked how Microsoft will make its new system stand out.

"Content is one of the primary ways we differentiate the two consoles," he said.

"We have our exclusive games, the likes of Sunset Overdrive, Ori and the Blind Forest [also available on PC], Halo Master Chief Collection and so on.

"The next thing you have to do is make sure all the third parties are partnering on your platform, and try if you can to either make those exclusive to Xbox or coming first to Xbox.

"Then you try to build out the broadest range of games to the widest number of people, which is where ID@Xbox can really help in particular.

"I would say there's still some differences in the hardware offering. I think Kinect is still something that stands out, some of the voice control components and some of the broadcasting capabilities such as Twitch are different and deeper on Xbox One than other platforms because of Kinect.

"I would argue that our Xbox Live service is a major differentiator. We believe it's the best place to play games with your friends, and I would argue it still is today."

In May, Microsoft announced it had dropped Kinect as a mandatory Xbox accessory, though the corporation will still sell the divisive 3D camera separately.

"Standalone Kinect will be out before Christmas, but we aren't yet ready to announce price or release date details," Eagle said.

DaveJB wrote:It depends on the exact resolution difference. If we're talking 900p on the XB1 and 1080p on the PS4, the difference usually isn't too noticeable unless you're playing on a huge TV, and/or the XB1 version also has a significantly worse framerate. But if it's 720p on the XB1 and 1080P on the PS4, yeah, that tends to be a lot more noticeable.

I mean, the Wii U may be the worst-designed console since Sega made the bold move of giving the Saturn a graphics chip that rendered rectangles instead of triangles, but at least Nintendo were smart enough to clearly differentiate it from the PS4 and XB1.

bilateralrope wrote: Nothing in between. Though the real absurdity is the claim that monitor size affects how noticeable framerate is.

Mr Bean wrote:You can't see the switch from 2010 graphics to 2006 graphics on the bush? Or the loss of resolution on the flag?
This is not the best image to use as a comparison if you have and apples to apples and see the differences at range but the foilage makes it obvious which is which. I'll give you a hint only one side has the giant blob for trees and the others has low res trees. Both look worse that Oblivion but still... as I've said before I think MS and Sony shot themselves in the foot by cutting back the console specs to something 2 years old when they launched.

Simon_Jester wrote:
Suppose some person (say, Bob) has such a sensitive eye that when they're playing a game and navigating through areas and moving and fighting and so on... they stop and say "WAIT! I can't see the leaves on the trees that are three hundred feet away!" That's what I called a 'princess and the pea' situation: excessive sensitivity to minor details about the environment.

bilateralrope wrote: The thing with framerate is that all the games I've heard about on the Xbox One and PS4 are either at 30 FPS or at 60, which is quite noticeable. Nothing in between. Though the real absurdity is the claim that monitor size affects how noticeable framerate is.

salm wrote:

bilateralrope wrote: Nothing in between. Though the real absurdity is the claim that monitor size affects how noticeable framerate is.

Are you sure?

Imagine an line with an arrowhead spinning on a monitor by 360 degrees per second. If you view it at 30 fps you see 30 images after each other with the line being rotated by 12 degrees each frame.
Now, the amount of degrees is the same on a small screen as it is on a large screen.
But the distance the arrow head travels every frame is larger on large screens than it is on small screens.

Shouldn´t therefore a larger screen require more fps?

Lagmonster wrote:But when I'm PLAYING a top modern FPS, I don't notice shit.

General Zod wrote:The 30fps is moving around a bit faster, but other than the speed boost when you drop frames I can't tell how one is better than the other from such a short clip.

bilateralrope wrote: Ok, you have a point in that if you get a screen small enough you won't be able to see the fps difference. Question is, are any of the screens that people actually use small enough to make the difference in framerate unnoticeable ?

A better question is: How is the spinning arrow you describe a better test than the rotating camera that this site uses to show the difference ?

The rotating camera is something that people will experience while playing, because rotating the camera is something that players do in a lot of games.

salm wrote: On the other hand some people really don´t seem to notice a big difference as seen here in this thread and in real life. Several friends of mine don´t seem to understand what I´m talking about when me and other friends complain about jittering in some games.</edit>

Gaidin wrote:Am I the only person that notices the difference when you hand me two stillframes side by side and I can sit there and pick stuff out especially when there's a thread of people pointing these things out but can't notice a damn difference when I'm distracted playing a game thinking it looks awesome? Had this issue with Watch Dogs thinking it looked awesome on fucking medium *everything* to start before I started experimenting with what my PC would really run with on that thing.

Sorry guys, too busy playing the game to give two shits. Got better things to worry about. Like not dying.

Gaidin wrote:Am I the only person that notices the difference when you hand me two stillframes side by side and I can sit there and pick stuff out especially when there's a thread of people pointing these things out but can't notice a damn difference when I'm distracted playing a game thinking it looks awesome?

Had this issue with Watch Dogs thinking it looked awesome on fucking medium *everything* to start before I started experimenting with what my PC would really run with on that thing.

salm wrote:It is weird that it appears to be slower because the player rotates 360 degree in one second. No matter which frame rate.

salm wrote:So it seams that the Microsoft guy does have a point.

"If you put third-party games side-by-side that are running at slightly different resolutions or frame rates, then unless you are using a screen that's more than 60 inches big, I defy you to really see the difference. I personally struggle to see the difference."

Sorry, if your hardware can't do 1080p at 60FPS: your shit is weak.