Sub-HD 360 games have been around for years; was 720p ever a requirement?

It's said that Microsoft has dropped their previous requirement of 720p for Xbox 360 games, even though sub-HD games have been released for the console since its launch.

Black Rock Studio's David Jefferies has revealed that Microsoft previously required all Xbox 360 games to be rendered in a 1280x720 resolution.

Based in Brighton, Black Rock Studios (part of Disney) is currently working on the racer Split/Second.

Jefferies reveals the trade-off between resolution and anti-aliasing (this gets rid of jagged edges) in console development:

"We are making a trade-off and saying that the screen resolution is more important to us than the quality of the anti-aliasing," said Jefferies in a Develop feature, adding:

"This isn't necessarily an entirely voluntary move because, until recently, Microsoft had a TCR insisting that games run at 1280x720 - providing you weren't one of the lucky ones like Halo, who got it waived and ran at 1152x640, that is."

It is now reportedly the case that developers are free to make the trade-off between resolution and image quality as they see fit on the Xbox 360 - an option that has been open to PlayStation 3 developers since launch.

However, Halo 3 wasn't the only game to feature a sub-HD resolution before this requirement was apparently dropped. Such games include Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty 4, Conan, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fifa 2006, Fifa 2007, Ninja Gaiden 2, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Tomb Raider Legend among others.

So if there was a 720p requirement imposed by Microsoft it can't have been very strict, since it's not just Bungie that was given a free pass.

However, whether rendering at 720p was a requirement in the past, it's certainly good news that developers can now have the freedom to choose what they feel is the best solution.