Spencer: Diablo III 1080p on Xbox One was a “Good Partnership;” Won’t Dictate Frame Rate or Resolution

Giuseppe Nelva August 20, 2014 4:48 PM EST

It’s pretty funny to see how things work in the gaming industry: when people don’t get something, they often demand it. When they get it, they still find room for criticism. Microsoft has been target of a lot of flak for the fact that many Xbox One games don’t reach a 1080p resolution, and now that Diablo III has touched that “magic number” on Microsoft’s new console, some are criticizing the company for somehow “forcing” Blizzard to do it.

Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer took the chance to clarify on Twitter that no one has been “forced” to push the resolution of the game:

We didn’t force any game to ship at 1080p. We work with devs to make the game they want to make on XB1. Diablo III was coming through during GPU increases in June, was good partnership to create a great Diablo on XB1. I just thought we could get to 1080p. If Blizzard thought it wasn’t right for Diablo they had the call on what shipped.

Spencer also responded to a fan who mentioned that he does not care about resolution numbers, as long as they look good and run well:

I agree with you, let the studios make the call on what they want to ship. They know their games better than I do. Studios decide, even our first party studios, I won’t dictate a framerate and/or resolution on a game.

That definitely seems to be a sensible approach, and I’m pretty sure that we’re going to see more games running at a sub-full HD resolution in the future.

I’m also quite sure that we’ll see many regretting that Microsoft didn’t “force” those developers to push for a higher resolution, but such is the voluble nature of the internet.