Now that we live in a world with both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, Sony and Microsoft respectively have been spent much of the year making a case for why you need their shiny, new(ish) machines, and a lot of the arguments have revolved around visual fidelity – aka eye candy.

“ Both sides seem to be happy competing on fidelity, and it’s gamers that suffer.

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“ 30fps has no place in online games, particularly competitive ones.

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“ There’s an improving trend towards console shooters embracing 60fps... Just look at Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six Siege.

Why buy a new console? 4K resolution! Supersampling! HDR, of course! Haven’t you seen how mind-boggling great our games look with all that stuff? It makes sense, but I feel we’re paying attention to all of this at the expense of a far more important qualitative aspect - frame rate. After all, what’s really more important – how good a game looks or how good it is to play?Higher frame rates make for smoother gameplay, which is particularly noticeable during faster-paced games when making dramatic camera movements. While the 30 frames-per-second (fps) game blurs and obscures details during movement, forcing the player to stop and refocus for clarity, the 60fps game retains greater detail during movement. More importantly, 60fps translates your controller input faster because it’s polling your inputs twice as often as 30fps.This is particularly noticeable and important in games where fast decisions are required to be reflected in controller input, such as in high-speed racing games, head-to-head fighters, and fast-paced shooters.These days, neither console nor TV refresh rates need be the limiting factor in creating 60fps console games. The trick is that neither Sony nor Microsoft has sent out the memo that this should be the new standard. Both sides seem to be happy competing on fidelity, and it’s gamers that suffer.For instance, the most gorgeous game I’ve played on PlayStation 4 Pro is Horizon: Zero Dawn. The Pro version has even more eye candy than the regular version, but it still runs at 30fps. You might argue that a game like Horizon – that’s not, say, a fast-paced twitch shooter – wouldn’t benefit from a higher frame rate, but I’d counter with Rise of the Tomb Raider. Lady Croft’s most recent adventure looks fantastic in 4K at 30fps, and it still looks great in 1080p with the 30fps ‘enriched visuals’ option. But it feels and plays better in 1080p resolution with the 60fps enabled.Particularly for players looking to play on higher difficulties, having a 60fps gameplay experience means your movement and aim intentions are translated faster between controller input and on-screen actuation. Basically, a more responsive game means you have to make one less allowance for the inherent delay between what you want to do and when the screen actually shows it happening.Still, I’ll entertain the argument that frame rate matters less for campaign experiences. After all, it’s clearly in line with the developer’s love of fidelity over frames when it comes to solo play. But 30fps has no place in online games, particularly competitive ones, and there’s one great example of a 30fps campaign creating a disconnect with a 60fps multiplayer experience: Gears of War 4.For those who played Gears of War 4 on Xbox One or Xbox One S, the campaign and Horde 3.0 modes were restricted to 30fps, while the multiplayer was bumped to the smoother 60fps. Xbox One X Gears of War 4 players can choose to opt for prettier 4K visuals at 30fps, or they can have every mode playable at 60fps. This is crucial for Gears of War 4 for players who shift between modes, because your active-reload timing windows change when played at 30fps and at 60fps.At 30fps, you anticipate the active reload, whereas at 60fps, you can hit the button right as the moving line on the meter hits the bar. Considering the risk of failing an active reload is a jammed gun and a longer reload time, this is a big deal, particularly if you’re fragging online.Naughty Dog took a similar approach to Uncharted 4, with a 30fps cap for the campaign and a 60fps boost for multiplayer. Uncharted 4 doesn’t have an active reload system, but the multiplayer felt snappier and more responsive at 60fps. Hell, it made it more of a viable online offering with real competitive potential.There’s an improving trend towards console shooters embracing 60fps, particularly the ones looking for esports potential. Just look at Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six Siege. They all run at 60fps for competitive modes, and it makes for better playing (and viewing), even for the games that aren’t as twitchy as Call of Duty.The stickier downside of boosting frames over fidelity is the potential hardware advantage if higher fps is available on the Pro and/or X version of a game, and not on the older versions of the respective consoles. If, for instance, 60fps Pro/X players are battling against 30fps – or even unlocked frame rates that jump between 30fps and 60fps – this will provide a noticeable advantage for the higher frame-rate players.This means Sony, Microsoft, and developers may want to avoid the idea of a hardware-driven pay-to-win system, where owning a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X offers a competitive edge online.This point was touched on a couple of weeks ago when Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene said in an interview that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will run at 60fps on Xbox One X. He later tweeted a clarification “that PUBG will run at 30fps across all Xbox One devices.”In fairness, PUBG is tricky to get to run at 60fps on PC, at the moment, but it’s also just entered the Xbox One Preview program, and Greene seems to suggest that 60fps is the goal across Xbox One devices. It’s a good lesson and goal for other developers.If devs ensure that PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and/or Xbox One S versions of a game can consistently hit 60fps, the same game played on the PS4 Pro and/or Xbox One X can look even prettier at 60fps. In this respect, fidelity can re-enter as a debating point between the consoles, so long as the standard is 60fps.

Nathan Lawrence is a freelance writer based in Sydney and shooter specialist. Track him down on Twitter