Call of Duty resolutions were the result of 'a long process'

Responding to criticisms over Call of Duty: Ghosts's disparate native resolutions on next-generation hardware, Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin says that this is not a simple matter of console power, but a complex issue of resource allocation that evolved over time. "It's not a thing, like pointing to the day [a Microsoft engineer] came and said... It wasn't that. It's a long process. And we're always working with both platforms," says Rubin, in an interview with Eurogamer. "It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago." The specific issue at hand is that Call of Duty: Ghosts is said to run at a native 1080p resolution on Sony's next-generation PlayStation 4, while running at 720p on Microsoft's comparably powered Xbox One. Some players see this as evidence that one console is definitely more robust than the other; a tearing point in deciding which brand to invest in this holiday season. "You're trying to develop your system to match with... two systems, now, not just one: Sony and Xbox. That creates a massive engineering nightmare," says Rubin. He continues:

Rubin remains confident that this is an issue localized to Ghosts, and holds out the optimism that now that the consoles are soon to be out in the wild, subsequent development will be easier -- and more consistent. "It's very possible we can get [Call of Duty: Ghosts] to native 1080p. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native. It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighborhood we wanted it to be," says Rubin. "I definitely see/hope both platforms will look way better the next time we get a chance at it."