Do Developers think all Console owners have 50" TV's?

[moretimethansense]

Have you got an HD TV? I just upgraded recently (I know, late adopter much?) and that fixed it for me. I now have a 22" HD in my room and sit about 3 feet away and it's perfectly readable.

I sit on a couch roughly 5 to 6 feet away from the TV, although its standard def, I dont think thats the problem. Its pretty clear resolution, and up close it looks just fine. Its just the size of the print itself. At 29", my TV should be more than big enough to be adequate at that range.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, walk about 6 feet away from this screen and read this post. This is what it looks like to me when I'm trying to play Dead Rising or Bad company 2.

Actually that is the problem, for some reason the font increases by about 6 sizes if you are using an HD TV.
Bullshit I know, I only had a standard def till recently, the only advice I have is either get a new telly(not that expensive if you shop around) or maybe hook your console up to a PC monitor.

I have no idea why they do it, but the conspiricy theorist in me tells me that they must have some kind of deal with a TV company of some kind, that or they are trying to blind the poor so they can't drag themselves out of their poverty and threaten their mighty corperate empire.

*Adjusts tin-foil hat and escapes in to the bushes*

 

[Rewdalf]

Tell me about it.
At home, I play Black Ops on a huge TV, but over winter break I stayed at a rented house for four days, and I couldn't read the text off of a normal sized TV.
Comparing the Black Ops multiplayer menu text to Modern Warfare 2's shows that there is a drastic size difference...

 

[mjc0961]

I don't know what to say other than yes, they are assuming you have an HDTV these days.

You mentioned Dead Rising. Not being able to see the text in the game is the reason why I went out and got myself the 32" HDTV that's still sitting in my room today. I've never had a "I can't read this text because it's too small!" problem sense.

I remember that Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts also had that problem, and after months of being bugged by fans, they released an update to make the text bigger if needed. However, they actually made it worse because they pretty much broke the text for both HDTV and SDTV owners, replacing the old text bubbles and font with a nasty black background, bright white, Comic Sans nightmare.

 

[51gunner]

Bad Company 2 is a particularly bad example. I feel your pain on that one; I love the game to death, but a lot of the text is very small. Oh yeah, and the health bars. Bet you didn't know those horizontal lines on things are the HP bars: you can get at-a-glance assessments of the HP of every teammate, and every vehicle.

Or at least you could if you could distinguish the filled center bar from the surrounding outer. I had to jack up the resolution on my TV (turns out was HD after all) to really read them.

 

[Dagnius]

I feel your pain... I play on a 20in flatscreen Sanyo... I've gotten to the point to where I'm paranoid of buying new games, especially FPS and RPGs due to the small text sizes and whatnot. I hope that sometime in the near future I'll be able to upgrade to a better TV but for now I just have to put up with it.

It spoiled me playing games on my friend's 42in... XD

 

[Dystopia]

This is why I've never been able to play Dead Rising. I did try, but bad eyesight on top of tiny text equals a frustratingly difficult game to play.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Have you got an HD TV? I just upgraded recently (I know, late adopter much?) and that fixed it for me. I now have a 22" HD in my room and sit about 3 feet away and it's perfectly readable.

Quited for truth and "Snap".
If it's HD it should be crisp and clear.

Not all 29" tellies are HD, man

 

[Infinatex]

You do realise these consoles are made for HD? This is the whole point of them. Without one you are going to get an inferior experience. It would be like people complaining that they couldn't watch the colour shows on their black and white TV. HD has been out long enough and has become cheap enough for it to be easily accessible. If you can afford the price for a current gen console you can afford a decent TV to go along with it.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Ya I once tryed playing Prototype (PS3 version) on my old tiny TV and COULD NOT SEE THE TEXT AT ALL

 

[Woodsey]

You do realise these consoles are made for HD? This is the whole point of them. Without one you are going to get an inferior experience. It would be like people complaining that they couldn't watch the colour shows on their black and white TV. HD has been out long enough and has become cheap enough for it to be easily accessible. If you can afford the price for a current gen console you can afford a decent TV to go along with it.

Well, technically they don't use true HD.

Have you tried changing the screen settings on your console? If you set it to it's native resolution (not just 720p, or 1080p) you should get a better image, and if you can't (think you might need an HD cable for that, can't remember) then just lower the resolution - if it's on 1080 then put it down to 720, and so on.

XinifiniteX is right though, if your TV isn't an HD one, the console won't scale the resolution properly. The size of the TV is irrelevant.

 

[Yomandude]

Wow, you are good at ranting!
OT: Assassin's Creed II was the first game I had this problem with. The menu-map and text are way small in that game. It is kind of disappointing for the less wealthy console gamers...

 

[Hotfoottfox]

Yea, every PS3 game I've played recently has this problem. My TV is a million years old so I can't read shit.

 

[x0ny]

Get an HDTV, your current TV is too low res...

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Dead rising 1

fuuuuuuu

Playing that game on an 15inch SDTV was hell.
I have a HD one now though.

 

[Irridium]

Yeah, its a problem with the resolution of your TV.

Developers don't assume you have a big TV, they just assume you have an HD TV. Which is also stupid. Its been said that its really hard to change the font after release, which I can understand, but WHY THE FUCK DON'T YOU JUST USE LARGER FONT WHEN DEVELOPING THE GAME?!?!

 

[Plurralbles]

Dead Space was a complete bastard on this subject.

I could NOT play that game.

 

[Saulkar]

It's not the size, it's the resolution. I also had to go HD when I got a 360. I didn't expect that.


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[dibblywibbles]

nah man I noticed this a couple years ago. they expect you to have a 40 inch at least these days or at the very least a 32 inch hdtv