Since the launch of the Xbox 360 back in late 2005, developers have been required to present their games in 720p resolution or better in order to get published.  While this practice hasn’t been followed every time, for the most part, it’s been a pretty hard and fast rule.  Some developers have felt somewhat hamstrung by the practice, often sacrificing on-screen character and frame rate stability to reach the 720p guideline.  Those developers can now rest easy, because the 720p rule is no longer in effect.

According to a Develop.com post by Black Rock Studio’s David Jeffries, Microsoft has recently dropped the requirement, allowing games to be released in standard definition.  Most likely, this is due to recent studies that have shown that high definition TVs haven’t had nearly the market saturation that many had believed.

I’m a bit torn on how this will affect future games.  While some devs will be freed up to do things in SD that wouldn’t have worked as well in HD, I fear that other game makers may get lazy, and release games in SD that should be in 720p or 1080p.  Sony has never had such requirements for its games (or at least never made them public), and for the most part, it hasn’t been an issue.  I hope the same can be said for the 360 in a year when we see the real effects of this policy change.

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