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It's an intriguing thought. With so many next-gen console titles targeting 1080p at 30 frames per second, why not offer gamers the option of playing at 720p60 instead? After all, the ability to trade pixels for frames has long been part and parcel of the PC gaming experience - and both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are based on x86 CPU cores and Radeon GCN graphics architecture. The idea of resolution vs frame-rate is based on one simple idea: reducing GPU fill-rate - the amount of pixels drawn - frees up enough power to process frames faster, resulting in smoother gameplay, usually with more precise, lower-latency controls. As everyone knows, resolution reductions have been a key tool for developers to get Xbox One games running at similar levels to their PS4 equivalents, so clearly, what works on PC can work on console too.
However, the relationship between pixels and frames is not quite as simple as many people think. Pixel fill-rate is by no means the only limiting factor to frame-rate - bottlenecks occur at many different points in any given game engine, inside or outside the GPU. Perhaps most importantly, it's also important to stress that there is no linear relationship between pixel-count and frame-rate - resolution is just one element in the mix. Put simply, there are no guarantees that a game targeting 1080p30 could also run at 720p60. Indeed, even if the fill-rate issue is addressed by lowering resolution, there's a good chance that you'll hit another processing bottleneck before you reach the 60fps ideal.
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