>>713452118Digital Foundry started during the PS3/X360 generation. Before that you couldn't really tell what resolution the games were running at since the CRT TV's resolution was so low. But on an LCD HDTV resolution is especially important (unlike with HD CRT monitors you can't make use of lower resolutions as much since they look like trash - LCDs have a fixed resolution).
This intensified with the PS4 and Xbox One generation, for a couple of reasons. One, "resolutiongate" (or whatever they called it) - the biggest difference between PS4 and Xbone was resolution so resolution really fueled the console war back then. Two, the jump from PS3 to PS4 was, while substantial, incremental instead of revolutionary. For the first time diminishing returns really started to hit and the biggest difference between old and new hardware became render resolution instead of the core visual make-up of a game.