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

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jurassic1024

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[citation][nom]weepee[/nom]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.[/citation]

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.
 

jurassic1024

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[citation][nom]r0x0r[/nom]If you can afford Bioshock2 then you can afford a used 19" monitor; they're pretty much the same price nowdays.[/citation]

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.
 

jurassic1024

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[citation][nom]bluntobjection[/nom]Hehe...SDTV fail.[/citation]

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

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]Ghaz[/nom]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.[/citation]

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.
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]weepee[/nom]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.[/citation]


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
 

pochacco007

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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.
 

Kelavarus

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[citation][nom]jurassic1024[/nom]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)? [/citation]

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.
 
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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.
 
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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)
 

Shadow703793

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[citation][nom]r0x0r[/nom]If you can afford Bioshock2 then you can afford a used 19" monitor; they're pretty much the same price nowdays.[/citation]
Yup. A 19-20" LCD from Acer,etc is ~$100-120 or so. Yes, it's not 37" but it works.
 

jurassic1024

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[citation][nom]John C[/nom]This is not developer fail. At least not in a strict sense.If you have a 13" SDTV... [/citation]

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.
 

omnimodis78

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[citation][nom]bluntobjection[/nom]Hehe...SDTV fail.[/citation]
Actually you're wrong, it's not SDTV that's a fail, it's BioWare not fulfilling their quality control obligations. While HDTV isn't a luxury anymore, it is still something some people haven't migrated to, so yeah, it's rather sloppy that BioWare didn't take this into consideration for a game being deployed on a console.
 

Intel_Hydralisk

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If you have a 360 or a PS3 and don't have a $20 cable to hook it up to your monitor, then you wasted a lot of money for an inferior experience.
 

Pailin

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We understand that on some Standard Definition TVs the smallest text in Mass Effect 2 can be difficult to read

Obviously they did test on SDTV's

but there are some Really crappy (OLD?) SDTV's out there!

They can't cater for Everyone LOL
 

Regulas

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Looks great on my gaming rig at 1920 x 1200. As for you Crapbox 360 players, you should have bought it on a real gaming platform (PC), I have no sympathy for you.
 

user-one

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i typically make fun of people playing a xbox360 on a non HD tv, thier ignorance and stubborness costs them dearly, yet agian.
 

will_chellam

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At the end of the day, this has nothing to do with the price/benefit ratio of HD vs SD television, which is what everyone is currently debating.

The xbox ships as default with an SD cable (except the elite and now obsolete premium versions). Some people with 360s have only an SD television - this is a fact.

There is absolutely no technical limitation why the text should not be readable in standard definition, or indeed be selectable for standard definition in the in-game options.

From that viewpoint, this has to be a massive fail on the part of bioware to exclude a large segment of their market. The people having this problem will more than likely have had no problems previously and are quite rightly upset that their new game is going to cost them another $X00's in order to be playable.

In the UK you would have extremely good grounds for returning the game for a full refund unless it explicitly stated a HD tv was required to experience some elements of the game.
 

Vampyrbyte

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Fact is both the Xbox 360 and Mass Effect 2 support Standard Definition display modes, If any part of the game does not work, or is not visible correctly at the recomened distance from a TV of a size (supported by respect to the resoloution it can display) then claiming to support that resoloution (presuming that both the Xbox 360 and the Television are functioning as intended) is simply criminal.

This is not a hardware or hardware adoption issue. If the game claims to support SDTV, it should support it FULLY.
The tone of people here disappoints me, i feel if the text display issue was with 720p or 1080p and worked fine on SDTV resolotions the attitude of some would be very diffrent. its the same principle. There are people out there disappointed that they cannot enjoy their game on the equipment that they were assured by the games developers, publishers and distributers it would work by and it does not. These people are entitled to refunds on the basis the product is not fit for purpose. However Bioware should be fixing this issue promtly and their lack of support shows a contempt for their customers that many of the affected customers will remember for some time.

For the record, I only bought my HDTV when my old 15inch portable TV broke, had it not broke i would still be using it today.
 
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