Interesting Anecdote From the Eurogamer Sunset Overdrive Stream

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ClearData

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Sunset Overdrive is my most anticipated upcoming Xbox One exclusive so I tuned into this stream to preview the game when I heard this interesting little nugget from Ian Higton, the host.

"You may notice that this livestream is also streaming in 1080p. That's because part of the embargo is that I have to upload videos that have a 1080p resolution for this game."
Click to expand...

Emphasis is mine.

This was interesting to me because other than restrictions length and the content sites were allowed to show I'd never heard of there being a resolution requirement. This raises a lot of questions for me.

It is clear to me that MS has become sensitive to the resolution issue. They told Blizzard that 900p for Diablo was "unacceptable." And now I have this. The question for me is why are they being so oversensitive?

I think most people are tired of resolutiongate and since it is clear what console is more powerful in terms of performance. The people who care about it have made or will make their purchasing decision based on that.

If MS is forcing a 1080p stream for a game that does not output at that resolution then I think it just changes the conversation from to one technical detail over gameplay and other important aspects. .

After hearing this requirement on resolution for something as simple as livestreaming I think things have just gotten out of hand. I feel like the games can't speak for themselves anymore.


If you want to check it out here is a link. The quote starts at the one minute mark.
 
If they were so sensitive about the whole 900p thing, they most definitely would not force (I'm happy to, personally) the streams to be 1080p, as a 720p stream would completely "erase" any artefacts from the upsampling to 1080p.
I don't really know why they mandated this, but the game looked fine to me from what I see during our stream yesterday. I'll see it in person today so maybe I'll see more defects, but as it was I had no problem with the image quality.
Edit: As far as I remember it's been confirmed as 900p for a few months.
 
The conversation is already significantly full of technical detail - often discussion of resolution and console warz drowns out discussion of gameplay.

Microsoft just reacting to that.

Don't see what the big deal is really, it's not like they are artificially altering the output quality by running at 1080p on a pc or something.

Just reaping what "we" (the vociferous internet) sow really
 
Could actually be a positive: Look at the IQ despite being 900p. On a 720p stream people might confuse 720p lower quality images with what the game actually looks like?
 
There have been several reports, anecdotes or rumours that hint that Microsoft are feeling a bit 'small man syndrome' about the resolution-gate of the Xbox One.

Whether that is true or not is speculation, but it is interesting that as the unique selling points of the Xbox One have been removed or not been the company focus, the traditional old resolution and framerate arguments have been a focus. They lose out there most of the time.

Remember, they were the company that said 'We purposefully did not target the highest-end graphics' before the launch of the console.

Microsoft would rather not have people discussing it so it could be inferred that they are making moves behind the scenes to minimise the 'damage'.

Sony would do the same.
 
Blimblim said:
If they were so sensitive about the whole 900p thing, they most definitely would not force (I'm happy to, personally) the streams to be 1080p, as a 720p stream would completely "erase" any artefacts from the upsampling to 1080p.
I don't really know why they mandated this, but the game looked fine to me from what I see during our stream yesterday. I'll see it in person today so maybe I'll see more defects, but as it was I had no problem with the image quality.
Edit: As far as I remember it's been confirmed as 900p for a few months.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I didn't know about that. Thanks for sharing.

I personally find the art direction of the game stunning. If they could maintain a smooth / high framerate and all the particle effects I wouldn't even mind playing in 720p to be honest.
 
Blimblim said:
If they were so sensitive about the whole 900p thing, they most definitely would not force (I'm happy to, personally) the streams to be 1080p, as a 720p stream would completely "erase" any artefacts from the upsampling to 1080p.
I don't really know why they mandated this, but the game looked fine to me from what I see during our stream yesterday. I'll see it in person today so maybe I'll see more defects, but as it was I had no problem with the image quality.
Edit: As far as I remember it's been confirmed as 900p for a few months.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's really about any IQ or jaggies concern, but rather perception.
 
Output from an Xbox One is always 1080p, upscaled by the box itself prior to being transmitted over HDMI to your television (and also prior to being captured). The videos being streamed/put up for download should be 1080p, because that is representative of what it will be on your television when you view it, i.e. a 900p internal rendering resolution upscaled to 1080p.
 
The game looks fantastic, and probably better than most 1080p titles out there. Framerate looks rock solid as well. I think MS has a huge hit on their hands if they market this properly.
 
Galvanise_ said:
There have been several reports, anecdotes or rumours that hint that Microsoft are feeling a bit 'small man syndrome' about the resolution-gate of the Xbox One.

Whether that is true or not is speculation, but it is interesting that as the unique selling points of the Xbox One have been removed or not been the company focus, the traditional old resolution and framerate arguments have been a focus. They lose out there most of the time.

Remember, they were the company that said 'We purposefully did not target the highest-end graphics' before the launch of the console.

Microsoft would rather not have people discussing it so it could be inferred that they are making moves behind the scenes to minimise the 'damage'.

Sony would do the same.
Click to expand...

I think you hit the nail on the head right there though. MS has some really good selling points. They have the best online infrastructure, the highest number of apps and services, and they have a growing AAA library. They can sell that to the average consumer.

The people that are really sensitive to resolution are often the most hardcore, I think. And they are going to talk about that anyway. Any attempt to obscure that information is more likely to annoy people.

So. overall, fight where your strengths are and not your weaknesses. Especially on an console exclusive where there is no competition from Sony on having a better version because Xbox is the only platform with the game. It is an odd strategy to me.
 
"The question for me is why are they being so oversensitive?"

:lol

You have seen the threads here when games aren't native 1080p, right? They probably just don't want to deal with the backlash when a bunch of hyperbolic children see the stream isn't 1080p and proceed to trash the game online constantly.
 
Is that a requirement for other games before they release? Don't think it really has anything to do with "resolutiongate" or whatever -- it's simply the fact that they want the game to look as good as possible; similar quality to the official footage they upload.
 
Bgamer90 said:
Is that a requirement for other games before they release? Don't think it really has anything to do with "resolutiongate" or whatever -- it's simply the fact that they want the game to look as good as possible; similar quality to the official footage they upload.
Click to expand...
Certainly not a requirement, or we wouldn't see so many pre-release footage on Twitch at 720p for various games.

Even without knowing about other games, wouldn't the statement made by the Eurogamer person make you think that something is different?
If it was regular embargo video requirements, it wouldn't be worth mentioning as it's an expected clause.
 
"It's a perception challenge" or so they said.

When you brand this issue, a hardware issue, as a perception issue it's only for one purpose: The objective - fix that "perception" to MS liking. Then again, it's not a perception challenge - it's a hardware problem that can't be fixed.

All these little moves behind the scenes are not intended for "hardcore gamers sensibilities" (marketing deceit, misrepresentation - what have you) on the issue but the casuals who might know no better. Then again mind-share spreads and they know it and MS has taken steps to tackle it.

It's a funny case study of sorts. For all the calls of "resolution don't matter" - it definitely shows that it matters - AND IT DOES A LOT. At least for the platform manufacturers. Individual consumer opinion on the subject is of no relevance. MS goal has clearly being to implant the idea that hardware power between both consoles is neglible so that other value propositions are instead leveraged (ex: OS, Exclusives, Network etc). Now isn't that the talk these days? What a surprise. A case of maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses, or in this context - masking it.
 
ClearData said:
I think you hit the nail on the head right there though. MS has some really good selling points. They have the best online infrastructure, the highest number of apps and services, and they have a growing AAA library. They can sell that to the average consumer.

The people that are really sensitive to resolution are often the most hardcore, I think. And they are going to talk about that anyway. Any attempt to obscure that information is more likely to annoy people.

So. overall, fight where your strengths are and not your weaknesses. Especially on an console exclusive where there is no competition from Sony on having a better version because Xbox is the only platform with the game. It is an odd strategy to me.
Click to expand...

The only time they've talked about resolution for SO is when they're asked. The rest of the time they've been pimping features and putting out weekly updates and answering questions about gameplay features and yet the 2 biggest threads on gaf for Sunset are about the game being 900p. They don't have a choice.
 
benny_a said:
Certainly not a requirement, or we wouldn't see so many pre-release footage on Twitch at 720p for various games.
Click to expand...
Didn't mean for every game -- simply meant if the same has been true for any other streams before the game launched.

Even without knowing about other games, wouldn't the statement made by the Eurogamer person make you think that something is different?
If it was regular embargo video requirements he talks about this clause, as it wouldn't be worth mentioning.
Click to expand...

It really wouldn't to be honest. I would just take it as the company wanting footage of their game to look good (which would seem obvious to me since these are streams before launch -- they pretty much act as advertisements).

That's just what I think though. It could be possible that MS did it to avoid the sub-1080p discussion I guess; That just wouldn't be the first thing/reason that would come to my mind though.
 
ClearData said:
If MS is forcing a 1080p stream for a game that does not output at that resolution then I think it just changes the conversation from to one technical detail over gameplay and other important aspects.
Click to expand...

Well, now that you've changed the conversation to that... yea...

Otherwise it would simply have been a case of showing the game in the way that closest matches how it'd look on your screen.
 
CassidyIzABeast said:
The only time they've talked about resolution for SO is when they're asked. The rest of the time they've been pimping features and putting out weekly updates and answering questions about gameplay features and yet the 2 biggest threads on gaf for Sunset are about the game being 900p. They don't have a choice.
Click to expand...

GAF is not representative of all the gamers out there though. I think if the game reviews well and is fun a lot of people are going to snatch it up as an exclusive to their Xbox One. Even those bemoaning the 900p thing. I think at the end of the day its about the game.

So it just seems like a fight MS is continuing a fight that they are never going to win. Maybe not on the livestream thing, but there is enough evidence to show that they are really intent that devs not put out games with technical disparities.
 
ClearData said:
So it just seems like a fight MS is continuing a fight that they are never going to win. Maybe not on the livestream thing, but there is enough evidence to show that they are really intent that devs not put out games with technical disparities.
Click to expand...

It's not about winning. It's about controlling and minimizing the talk = WIN. That's why MS will continue to put attention to this issue by modifying its marketing for games (which includes the way the media handles MS content of priority as well as third party sensibilities of BIG multi-plat games).
 
Synth said:
Well, now that you've changed the conversation to that... yea...

Otherwise it would simply have been a case of showing the game in the way that closest matches how it'd look on your screen.
Click to expand...

That's why I wrote "if." A lot of posters pointed out that they might just desire footage matching the final output or other technical details which I was unaware of. So I wasn't, you know, trying to change the conversation for what it's worth. It was the very particular quote from the streamer that put me down that line of reasoning. If it was common practice to stream at 1080p then why mention it as a requirement of embargo? It sounded curious.

That's what I was thinking to be perfectly honest.
 
Could it be also that Youtube doesn't have a 900p option so it's either 720p or 1080p. But then first time I'm hearing of this because other embargo for X1 games haven't explicitly demanded something like this, right?
 
Bgamer90 said:
It really wouldn't to be honest. I would just take it as the company wanting footage of their game to look good (which would seem obvious to me since these are streams before launch -- they pretty much act as advertisements).
Click to expand...
I wasn't even speculating about motive or intention. Just pointing out that if something is different, the likelihood of mentioning it are vastly higher than if something has been an accepted industry standard. It's news.
 
*Looks at avatar*

Oh, it's the beanie brigade making a thread about a game for the XB1.

I suspect the game is going to be at 900p.
 
RiccochetJ said:
*Looks at avatar*

Oh, it's the beanie brigade making a thread about a game for the XB1.

I suspect the game is going to be at 900p.
Click to expand...

So if you are going to judge the content of my post based on my avatar there really isn't much I can do to dissuade you from your premature judgment.

I own both consoles and a good PC. SO has been my most anticipated game other than Quantum Break and will likely be a day one for me at whatever resolution. So please don't mistake my love for infamous and this thread as some sort of concern trolling. I can be a fanboy sometimes, but I love games enough to not let the platform blind me.
 
To be fair to MS the reason they are probably sensitive to resolution is they probably get fed up with no matter what sort of game they make all they get is constant crap about the resolution from certain sections of fans and competitors

I would get sick of it as well
 
Well, you can't upload 900p footage to YouTube, can you? If you only offer 720p video, it implies on the site that your resolution is worse than it actually is. I can understand why MS wouldn't want that.
 
Messofanego said:
Could it be also that Youtube doesn't have a 900p option so it's either 720p or 1080p. But then first time I'm hearing of this because other embargo for X1 games haven't explicitly demanded something like this, right?
Click to expand...

wrowa said:
Well, you can't upload 900p footage to YouTube, can you? If you only offer 720p video, it implies on the site that your resolution is worse than it actually is. I can understand why MS wouldn't want that.
Click to expand...

The console outputs either upscaled 1080p or downscaled 720p. 900p is just what the game uses internally.

Ironically, downscaling to 720p would make the game look better, but MS probably doesn't want people to get the impression that the console isn't capable of 1080p. As someone else put it, 'small man syndrome'.
 
Don't really see a problem here. It's not like they're trying to be sly about it, the resolution is known.

1080p tvs are the norm now, all media should be shown at that resolution, upscaled or not.
 
I watched a good chunk of that video, game looks stunning. However gameplay looks boring and that mission, collect 10 pieces of trash...
 
A forum post that displays a 900p image upscaled next to a native 1080p screen does an enormous amount of damage.

You don't need to count pixel, to focus on "that last stone at the end of the road that's a little bit smudged", to link to a long tech-babble filled video comparison, or to link to improbable 30 vs 60 test pages which are often more misleading than clarifying.

900p upscaled VS native 1080p is as clear as "one looks like shit, the other doesn't". No surprise PR teams are scared to death by the whole issue.
 
Watching the stream I was more happy that the framerate seemed pretty stable considering its gets crazy with explosions and many enemies on screen
 
Having demo'd it last week, it really doesn't feel like the game is held back by its' 900p resolution at all with that stable framerate, and the upscaling looks rather nice, so honestly them wanting people to see it streamed at 1080p upscaled still probably looks better than it being downsampled to 720p.
 
U-R said:
A forum post that displays a 900p image upscaled next to a native 1080p screen does an enormous amount of damage.

You don't need to count pixel, to focus on "that last stone at the end of the road that's a little bit smudged", to link to a long tech-babble filled video comparison, or to link to improbable 30 vs 60 test pages which are often more misleading than clarifying.

900p upscaled VS native 1080p is as clear as "one looks like shit, the other doesn't". No surprise PR teams are scared to death by the whole issue.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about images from two different games? Because a 1080p upscaled 900p image will likely look worse than a native 900p image.
 
Tak3n said:
To be fair to MS the reason they are probably sensitive to resolution is they probably get fed up with no matter what sort of game they make all they get is constant crap about the resolution from certain sections of fans and competitors

I would get sick of it as well
Click to expand...

Exactly this.
 
This is a good thing. I wish more companies cared about the quality of their gaming footage. Most gaming websites and streamers crap up the footage in various ways.
JaggedSac said:
Are you talking about images from two different games? Because a 1080p upscaled 900p image will likely look worse than a native 900p image.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure the xbox one can't output a 900p native image.
 
justsomeguy said:
Neither console had"highest end graphics" at launch though. Ps4 has higher end than xbox but both still firmly mid/higher mid range at launch IMO.
Click to expand...

I think the difference is that Sony put all of their effort into getting the most graphical bang for their target launch price. Microsoft allocated some of their money to massive Kinect investment and three OS running at once.

Sony got the highest end graphics they could for their money, Microsoft didn't. That is what I always took from the quote anyway.

As things have played out, Sony used their money more wisely.

jesu said:
Do console manufacturers ever target the highest end graphics?
Click to expand...

For their £349, Sony did. For Microsofts £429, they didn't.

That was what I was trying to get across. Anyways, what is done is done.
 
2San said:
This is a good thing. I wish more companies cared about the quality of their gaming footage. Most gaming websites and streamers crap up the footage in various ways.

Pretty sure the xbox one can't output a 900p native image.
Click to expand...

They are not next-gen yet :(

Thank god for Gamersyde
 
Blimblim said:
If they were so sensitive about the whole 900p thing, they most definitely would not force (I'm happy to, personally) the streams to be 1080p, as a 720p stream would completely "erase" any artefacts from the upsampling to 1080p.
I don't really know why they mandated this, but the game looked fine to me from what I see during our stream yesterday. I'll see it in person today so maybe I'll see more defects, but as it was I had no problem with the image quality.
Edit: As far as I remember it's been confirmed as 900p for a few months.
Click to expand...
Even a 1080p stream looks worse than 900p on your TV. So 1080p for streaming means a higher bit rate and better quality.
 
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