Want to know how to truly screw every gamer and customer? Well, then take a page from the Sony book, because they have a ton of secrets to share with you. The latest debacle to be added onto the ever growing sh*t pile that is the PlayStation 3 has to do with the fact that if you own an HDTV that only goes up to 1080i, well, then youāre sh*t out of luck with games that only go up to 720p. Can you believe this?
The latest (rather major) tidbit is how the console treats the upscaling and downscaling of 720p titles on televisions that donāt support that resolution ā specifically those that are only 1080i capable.
As it turns out, gamers who own older HD sets that feature only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolution input capabilities will have to settle for the display quality being downsized as the game boots in its 480p mode rather than upscaling the image from its more desirable 720p mode to the TVās 1080i. We tested this development on older HDTV sets with games designed for 720p but not 1080i ā Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon. Sure enough, the system downshifted all four titles to 480p rather than moving up to 1080i.
The PlayStation 3ās competitor, Microsoftās Xbox 360, does upscale 720p games to 1080i if the HD set supports the latter resolution but not the in-between and commonly-employed 720p resolution.
Think $600 is expensive? Wait until you drop a couple grand to get a 1080p HD set to make that PS3 actually worthy. Welcome to next gen.
Published: Nov 16, 2006 3:54 AM UTC