The graphics battle between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 has been raging for months. Here at the start of December, with the consoles finally loose in the wild, one thing is certain: Several big games run at a higher resolution on PS4 than on Xbox One. And although it's easy to downplay the significance of that disparity, I've found that it really does make a difference.
But it does matter that those games don't look as good on the Xbox One. I don't even mean that it matters because of what the resolution difference does or doesn't suggest about both consoles' future games, or what it means about how they'll sell, or anything like that. It matters in the most self-evident way: Right now, for some people (like me!), it makes a difference that the PS4 versions of these games look better than their Xbox One counterparts. How much does it matter to you? It matters precisely as much as you think it matters that one version of a game looks better than the other one.
I've played all of the above games on both consoles on my home TV, and I now play them only on PS4. Why? I like the controller, sure, but mostly it's because, with the exception of Need for Speed: Rivals, the PS4 versions all look noticeably better. (Rivals looks about the same on both.) Battlefield 4 is a fine-looking game, and the higher resolution on PS4 makes distant objects clearer on my TV. The colors look sharper, too. Assassin's Creed IV looks gorgeous on PS4, and it's noticeably crustier on Xbox One.
On Xbox One the game (COD Ghosts) is jaggy and blurry by comparison, and the overall experience feels a lot like playing an Xbox 360 Call of Duty game. If I'd bought Ghosts as the one big game for my new Xbox One, I'd be bummed.
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