I think the discussion on if resolution matters, or on that particular poll, is going far beyond on how those results/statistics were derrived...
Does Resolution Really Matter?
....
Now I'm curious to see the responses to this. Will there be an actual reasoned discussion or will it degenerate into "bias" or "clickbait" accusations?
...what is happening here, is rather simple. People buy a console and when confronted with actual questions on why they chose that system [over another], it's only natural to stand behind some of the
perceived differences, irregardless how miniscule they are.
The PS4 just happens to tick the right boxes, making the argument to stand behind it as the system of choice so much easier. I think the discussion if people really see the actual difference in resolution or if it is indeed a valid metric to determine system performance to be quite irrelevant. In fact, I think most blind tests will actually show that distinguishing resolution while actually playing a game to be rather difficult to next to impossible. It is only highlighted when doing side by side comparisons and even then, it's probably too difficult unless we are talking about a larger resolution difference than what we are getting between Xbox One and PS4.
...and that is before we start to realize that most TVs have overdraw enabled so we are actually judging upscaled/filtered images without a 1:1 pixel mapping...
Seriously - this whole talk is a bit like people explaining to other people why they bought a BMW instead of a Mercedes or vice-versa. Yes, sometimes, one car is actually better than the other, but it rarely comes down to technical superiority to the point a car magazine reviews the car at its limit. The same applies to game; Thanks to digital foundry, anyone has some insight into the differences of games on differing platforms. It's the whole point of these technical discussions to extrapolate and exagerate differences that are even so miniscule, not even technical minded people would actually notice them if it weren't for a framerate counter, or a pixelcounter with a magnifying glass doing the math for them.
...and yet, it's only human to want the best for your money. And some people actually prefer to play on the platform that gives them the [false] feeling to be actually be playing the game in the best possible way, irregardless if they would actually notice any difference.
But why do these "differences" have any impact on sales in the first place?
Because you go into game or electronics store - and people before actually purchasing a system might ask the sales person on which is better. And at that point, the general conscious is that PS4 is (was) cheaper, yet is expected to offer better performance due to a better GPU. And that Xbox is the one with the big unknown Kinect vision etc that isn't exactly about playing games. That may be a thing of the past, but the technical difference is still something part of that image they will not be able to get rid of. And as time goes on; what once used to be technical arguments in favour of one console will slowly turn into the much more basic but powerful argument; "The PS4 is the better selling console, so is probably also the safer bet".
And everyone else who doesn't listen to what the store sales person sais, either gets what they are fan of, or because they know which [exclusive] games they prefer - or simply what their friends are playing or the platform that they invested time and money in. It's really that simple.
