BioWare: We Can't Fix Tiny Text on Your TV

I really don't think that Bioware should have to worry about it. I think that most people that play xbox 360 probably have an hdtv or pc monitor that they could play on....

That's a tad ignorant thing to say. My girlfriend plays 360 and we are students, we couldn't afford an HDTV. I know many people in this situation. Just because your lifestyle and the people you know can, doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

For the most part I agree, but the lack of a warning or min display spec on the box is pretty sloppy. When I was in the industry, this was one of the things we tested for.

If you can afford Bioshock2 then you can afford a used 19" monitor; they're pretty much the same price nowdays.

Hehe...SDTV fail.

They should offer a option to change font size (like offer a slider where a user can control the size)

the text can easily be changed as it is not hard coded into the game, in many games you can even edit the text and font and font size, with mass effect you may need to use a hex editor to change some of the text as it is all stored in many different random dat files instead of a cfg file or some other format that can easily be edited, the only hard part is adding the option menu section where a user can select a text size that will require access to the original source code (the game developers can easily add this feature as a patch for the game)

If you can't afford a HDTV (and I'm not even saying a Full HD), you better NOT have a 360.
That's the reason I will first of all buy my HDTV (after my house been reformed) and THEN buy a 360.
AND nowadays HDTVs aren't expesive as they were in some time ago...
Ditto.
(Just to state: in my case it ISN'T lack of money the reason...)
lol

Well you can always buy the 360 VGA cable and hook it up to your monitor to play...

Thats what I used to use before I got my HDTV, I found it much more enjoyable playing 360 games on my 22" monitor than my 32" Standard Definition TV, you lose so much detail on the SDTV it really defeats the entire purpose of having a 360 (or a PS3).

Good for them. It's time to move on. If you paid $250 or more for an Xbox 360, you shouldn't be a cheap *** and leave it connected to a $40 TV.

I noticed with a few games on my brothers old CRT on the 360 I couldn't read a damned thing, so I just grabbed my Xbox VGA cable and plugged it into the monitor.

It is a problem, and not everyone wants to buy a new TV, so font size should be decided on what video output option is selected (1080p/i, 720p, 480p etc.).

Can't exactly afford to buy my brother a new TV just so he can read what the hell people are saying...

so people can afford to buy a $300 or even more system, but cannot afford a 19" HDTV for $250? or even a monitor with a HDMI input for less then $200?? it sucks for those people but maybe they should have bought an up to date TV before buying an up to date gaming console.

so you don't have the money to get the hardware, but you spend $40+ on each game, or you only get 1 game and playit for 3 years ?

get a PC you can always get free games or really cheap

Who cares about SDTV gamers? Almsot everything is HD now and why would you get an 360 if you cant use the HD? But hell if you spend 60 a year on live then go buy a TV!

I see there isnt a complain from PC ppl

Im glad Bioware isnt gonna patch it, devs shouldnt have to dumb down a game to compencate for consoles or SDTV users.

That would be a good idea apart from the fact i paid $2000 dollars (equivalent threof) for my toshiba strata tv 5 years ago, for 95% of what I use it for its totally fine, I really dont need to watch the news in HD, the inbuilt speakers are far better than any flatpanel speakers will ever be and it doesnt suffer as badly under strong light as many flat panels do, to top it off the picture quality and colour reproduction is generally better than a lot of cheapo 'hd; tvs....

If thats the attitude, then the xbox shouldnt have an SD option at all, but then youd be screwed if you wanted to take it anywhere you didnt have a hdtv.

For the record I bought my 360 becuase it was cheaper and better featured than any wireless media streamer on the market at the time, and HDTV's were prohibitively expensive £1000+ for anything remotely decent. I realise they're much cheaper these days, but I shouldn't have to pay £40 + £600 just to make one game playable.

u can get a nice pc monitor for less than 180 pounds.

I don't think Bioware will fix this. Capcom did exactly the same thing (Meaning ignore.) about Dead Rising.

The argument that "if you can afford the 360 and a game then you can afford a 19" monitor" is stupid. First, why would someone want to go out and buy a 19" screen when they already have a perfectly good 32" set in front of their couch? That's money that could be spent on another game! (or five)

That directly leads me to my 2nd point. Why downgrade in size so much? I see so many ignorant tv buyers say things like, "I'd definitely take a smaller screen for better resolution." Do you realize that no one in the history of the world has ever installed their tv and muttered the comment, "I wish I had gone smaller." Too small of a tv is often an issue. I'm not sure why someone would want to connect their XB360 to a 19" screen so they have to sit two feet away slouched over in their little wooden chair.

Sitting back eight feet while lounging on a couch gives a much better experience. I say all large screen SDTV users SHOULD be upset about this. What a great oversight by the game maker.

When using that VGA cable, did the XBOX detect your monitors native resolution? I'm assuming 1680x1050.

Up to date? Doesn't the Xbox 360 come with SD and HD cables (a single hybrid cable)? A 19" is much smaller than say, a 27" SDTV. Not really an obvious workaround.

First, where did Bioshock 2 come from in an article about Mass Effect 2. I know, it was an example, but wtf.

Second, you're saying if i can afford a $60 game i can afford a $60 monitor? I don't think so. So, if i can afford one car, i can afford another (for w/e reason i need two cars)? Now if i was buying a laptop for say, $600 and the extended warranty was $95, then that would make sense. To say spending another 100% of what you just spent to replace a working piece of equipment (SDTV set)over small text in one game, sounds (and is) so wrong.

What if Microsoft said you had to download updates manually one by one from now on? Would you be online looking for 3rd party software to make doing it easier? Didn't think so. What's good for the goose isn't always good for the gander... hence the forum complaints. Of course people with workarounds aren't gonna make a big deal out if it.

Developer fail. Remember, this is about ONE game and its small text.

Do you really need subtitles? My Effects and Music volume is at 50%, SPeech Volume is at 100%, and I can hear everything just fine...

I agree , i knOW MANY people playing 360's on CRT SDTV's I my self even have a old widscreen CRT that is only standard def (though it did come out right at the time composite was new , so i get good text quality on most games using composite cables with it) point is i only know 1 out of about 15 friends of mine that acutlly laid down teh doh for a HDTV to play thier 360 on the rest of us are too broke to afford a HDTV , hell the very idea of a consume (aka poor man's game machine) says tht most users probably don't have a big fancy expensive HDTV.

has it occured to you that some people got a really nice size CRT a few years back before teh HDTV thign hit and dont have the money to piss away on what is essintaily a screen size down grade ?? , if i'm going to replace my old wid screen CRT , it is goign to be with soemthing that is 32 + inches (my wide screen crt is 30 inches ).
32+ LDC HDTV's are NOTcheap
i dont care what kind of rich ass hole you are , most 32's go for around 400-500 and that IS NOT cheap period
besides i have composite hook ups and the 360 looks just fine using that

they can fix it. but why bother. developers make their own games. if people have a hard time, then that isn't the developers problem. that is the consumers problem because they are too cheap to buy a big screen tv, can't afford new glasses, are too old and should be playing video games, etc....

bioware should not fix this problem. this is a consumer problem. if i can't play the game because the text is too small, then i should have bought a bigger screen tv. but because i didn't buy a bigger screen tv, then it's my lost because i was too cheap and didn't thought about this thing.

lolwut? I have no interest in the overall SDTV/HDTV debate, but it's called a choice. While the Bioshock 2 thing WAS random, I believe they're saying you can choose to NOT buy Bioshock 2, or wait for it, and get a monitor which will play your games with acceptable text size.

Considering if you bought Mass Effect 2 (which I don't know, this is just an example), are actually interested in the story, but now can't really play it, it would probably be an easy choice.

It's funny how people seem to forget the Xbox 360 came out in 2005 and HDTV's at the time weren't cheap. And just because you can afford one thing doesn't mean you can afford the other. I know a lot of people who struggled to save a for a 360 and didn't think the would have the need to buy a HDTV just to play games, since now the Xbox doesn't even include component cables only composite.

This is not developer fail. At least not in a strict sense.

If you have a 13" SDTV do you think you should be able to read the text. (if you think you should i recommend you buy a PSone and enjoy some older titles)

I couldnt play star ocean TLH on my toshiba 32" HDTV (old 4:3 Tube model) because the TV in HD mode made the text and meters for the characters so small I could not read them. This is not a defect in the game it is a simple matter of resolution.

It is not possible to test every combination of TV and software out there in every size to make sure it is something YOU are comfotable reading. If you cannot play the game with your current devices, do not play it. If you want to play it that bad... save your pennies for a new TV that works with it.

If you have a TV that falls in the arena of having composite inputs, or HDMU but is not FULL HD compliant. take the damn component or HDMI out of your TV and plug in the composite cables cause the HD output of your Xbox is not designed for alot of TVs that were released in the trasitional period (I have seen plasma TVs with 1280x1080 resolutions with 16x10 format. That is not full 1080 even though it says it is 1080 HD, my toshiba falls in this area too as it supports 480i,p and 1080i only. and 1080i only in a Compressed mode that makes my 32" TV a 25" TV)

Yup. A 19-20" LCD from Acer,etc is ~$100-120 or so. Yes, it's not 37" but it works.

How are you going as low as a 13"? This is a joke right? It still doesn't explain why this ONE game is in the news/forums for pissing people off for small unreadable text, unless all those people had 13" TV's. 640x480 is a very common resolution. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Star Ocean was out before LCD's. If true, then that is in no way near the same as a new game on an older SD TV. Bioware has nothing to gain by not supporting SDTV's, which means they effed up. With all the concern about piracy, it wouldn't make sense for Bioware to purposely develop a game without SD support resulting in lost revenue.

Your last paragraph has no relevance whatsoever so I'll forget I ever read it.