Arguing over consoles' native resolution is mostly PR, says The Witcher's studio

The ongoing argument over native resolution — 1080p versus 900 or some other lower figure — is "more of a PR differentiation," said the co-founder of the studio making The Witcher 3.

Moreover, resolution differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are "very important for Sony right now," Marcin Iwinski of CD Projekt told Eurogamer, "and they are using it, obviously."

Iwinski said his studio is "definitely working to max out each of the platforms in terms of what we can get, because that's a crucial element of The Witcher." Yet "big differences" in the game between the two consoles are unlikely.

"It's too early to say. If there will be, they will be tiny," he said. "It will be more like people talking 'hey, I have this and you have that and this is better'."

CD Projekt is somewhat removed from the debate over console power, notably developing The Witcher primarily for PC. The first of the series was PC only and the second launched on Xbox 360. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will launch on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.

"The final effect, whether it's 720p, 1080 — we had the debate in the studio about it and actually asked our tech guys to explain how it works, and they sent me some complicated graphs that 'if I have this size of the screen, and I sit one meter or two meters from it, then I might be able to see the difference'." Iwinski told Eurogamer.

That said, next-gen consoles aren't totally irrelevant to the development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In March, CD Projekt Red said the increased power of next-gen consoles meant they could develop richer graphics for all platforms without worrying about the performance of one of them.