I don't know if I'm LTTP, but I see this Xbox scaler secret sauce FUD being stated by a bunch of posters, and it's time for some facts:
The PS3, PS4, 360, One ALL have hardware scalers. These scalers are simply GPU fixed-function blocks in all of them and they don't cost anything to use. The scalers are not separate chips, they're just a section inside the GPU.
The PS3's RSX has a hardware scaler that's shitty and broken as it cannot scale an image both vertically and horizontally. It can only scale horizontally. It's being used in such games like GT5 and Motorstorm Apocalypse (2D mode) where it stretches a 1280x1080 native render to 1920x1080, or at Wipeout where the resolution is dynamic but only scaled horizontally between 960x1080 through 1280x1080, 1600x1080 etc, only through the horizontal axis.
This means that any game that's not rendering at somethingx1080 or native 720p is being upscaled via software on the PS3. This includes all the COD games, GTA4, Crysis 2,3, etc. This is done at a minor cost to performance and more importantly memory, which is very precious on the PS3. This also explains why most PS3 games output at 720p, as there is no way to scale 720p to 1080p in hardware in the PS3 and it leaves it up to your TV to scale it. ANY SOURCE that's not 1080p that you watch on a 1080p TV is scaled to 1080p by your TV no matter what the input is, unless you letterbox it and use only half your TV to view it, which nobody does.
The lack of a proper scaler that works in both dimensions in the PS3 is also the reason why some games render at 480p when you don't have the 720p output option checked in the preferences, like some people did 8 years ago when there were many TV's that supported 1080i (1080i is the same resolution as 1080p, it's just not progressive) but not 720p. Uncharted 2 will render at 960x1080 and use the RSX's scaler if you disable 720p and enable 1080. Towards the end of the generation, most games on PS3 just used a software scaling solution that cost very little performance, and more importantly some memory. Also even very little performance can make a difference when you need all of it, obviously.
The Xbox 360 did not have any of these problems because the AMD GPU inside can scale any resolution to 1080p just fine.
The PS4 and Xbox One have the same hardware scalers that exist in ALL AMD 7xxx series cards and can scale any output resolution to 1080p (and maybe beyond to 4K). Those scaling hardware blocks are GPU components just like the CU's and ROPS.
The reason for the PS4 scaler FUD was due to DF not really knowing what they're talking about and saying this in their BF4 face-off:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-battlefield-4-next-gen-vs-pc-face-off-preview
"This should surely be a home run for Sony's console, but what is likely to be a software-based upscale to 1080p delivers less-than-stellar returns, and for better or worse leaves the Xbox One with an often crisper looking, albeit much more aliased image."
This DF quote, ladies and gentlemen, proves beyond a reasonable doubt, that DF DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. DF looked at the Xbox One's incorrect gamma and sharpening filter, PS4 motion blur, and the FXAA solution in the PS4 version that slightly blurs textures and guessed immediately went Xbox super awesome scaler > PS4, which is false. They simply projected the scaling issues from the PS3 to the PS4 and incorrectly guessed that PS4 is doing a software upscale. THERE IS NOTHING COMMON ABOUT SCALING BETWEEN THE PS3 AND PS4, THEY USE DIFFERENT GPU VENDORS! All 7xxx series cards and APU's based on them have hardware scalers and developers have no reason to not use them as they're free.
As far as scaling games, both consoles have equivalent scalers. Only difference is MS can scale 3 different outputs, required for Game, UI, Snap, compared to 2 for PS4.
Sorry for the long read but this "DF software upscaler FUD" really pissed me off and I wanted to set things straight.