Call of Duty: Ghosts Is Native 1080p On PS4, Upscaled 720p On Xbox One

Rumors have been floating for more than a week that there was a real graphics disparity between the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One when it came to upcoming first person shooter Call of Duty: Ghosts. Now it has been confirmed by Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin on Twitter that the PlayStation 4 version will be played at a native 1080p resolution. The Xbox One version will be played at 1080p upscaled from a native 720p.

To understand the scope of the differences, 1280×720 is both the width and height of the visible Xbox One video image of Call of Duty: Ghosts, coming out to 921,600 pixels. The PlayStation 4 version (at 1920×1080) totals 2,073,600 pixels, 2.25 times more than on the Xbox One.

This is disappointing, for many reasons. First, for Microsoft. The developers were not able to get as much of a graphical output on the Xbox One than on Sony’s console. Whether it is a potential bottlenecking issue, hardware limitation or otherwise, it does not bode well for consumer interest. Battlefield 4 also runs at 720p on the Xbox One (900p for the PS4), meaning two of the top next-gen multi-platform first-person shooters run weaker than on the PS4.

Even more saddening is that 720p is all Infinity Ward developers could get out of the Xbox One. Call of Duty: Ghosts is still running on a modified Quake engine (the original built in the 90’s) called the IW Engine, one that the team has been adapting and working with specifically within the CoD series since Call of Duty 2 in 2005. It will be interesting to see what happens further down the line to alleviate this situation in future titles.

Call of Duty: Ghosts launches on current-gen consoles and the PC on November 5. The PlayStation 4 version will launch with the console on November 15th, while the Xbox One version will launch with that console worldwide on November 22nd.

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