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The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

vale.rocks

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Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#51

Post by ToucanLoucan »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #32
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, BUT: Ubisoft's is not actually a click through and the amount of text on it means they show it for quite a long time, with no way to click past, and THAT is fucking obnoxious. I'm quite glad those warnings exist, don't get me wrong. I am not en epileptic, please do not try and force me to read your 3 paragraphs about epilepsy kthnx.

Blame the lawyers then. I imagine very few games do it out of genuine concern for those with epilepsy. Accessibility is an after thought as well for many devs. I personally applaud any company that is attempting to increase accessibility and chooses to put up warning signs. I can press an extra button or two. It’s not the end of the world.

Oh absolutely agreed. I'm bitching about the inability to push those extra buttons.

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#52

Post by kiyundai »

donatj wrote: post #39

When I got my Switch years ago my reaction to the UI was basically "This is it?" It felt like an un-styled working prototype. My thought was "Nintendo rushed this thing out the door to stay in business, surely they'll add some character over time" as they had done with the 3DS (the 3DS started out good but got better). Nope? I'm still waiting. The only real big change they made was the introduction of their terrible…

I'm so disapointed in the switch, had it day one and i'm still waiting for all the fun features of the 3ds...

Spotpass and the mini games were fun, the stickers and theming were fun It sure was gimmicky and sprinkle with some utx, but we truly lost something with the switch

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#53

Post by vanchor3 »

donatj wrote: post #39

When I got my Switch years ago my reaction to the UI was basically "This is it?" It felt like an un-styled working prototype. My thought was "Nintendo rushed this thing out the door to stay in business, surely they'll add some character over time" as they had done with the 3DS (the 3DS started out good but got better). Nope? I'm still waiting. The only real big change they made was the introduction of their terrible…

They even put in an entire themes menu, with space as if you were going to have more themes you could download at some point, similar to the 3DS. 6 years later it's still just "Basic White" or "Basic Black".

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#54

Post by nottorp »

shakow wrote: post #22
tom_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Press Any Button screen is there so the game knows which input device is being used, and therefore (one way or another) which user, so it can apply any parental control/accessibility/etc. options required.

Many games can just swap devices on the fly (from the top of my mind, Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Lords of the Fallen, Dirt Rally).

It's not the game. You just press the PS button and then you can turn off the controller that is running out of battery from a system menu, turn on another and go back to the game. At least on the PS4 and 5.

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#55

Post by nottorp »

nemomarx wrote: post #47
Forgeties79 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not trying to be difficult but this is very easy to search and the combative tone is unnecessary. I can tell you firsthand my Xbox does it, but that doesn’t really do anything for you because you already doubt me for some reason. You should still look it up to confirm it for yourself. You can tie users to controllers and set that for login. It’s a documented, widely used feature. I get that may sound ridiculous t…

I don't mean to be combative, I've just genuinely never used a console with that. The perils of mostly using PCs and Nintendo ones, I guess? If it's standard with both Xbox and Sony that does cleanly explain the press any button screen, although I wonder why they leave it in for the PC ports.

I don’t think it’s standard on Sony. But then I just play games on a few PlayStations , never used the actual parental controls.

But I guess they’d have told me that I could attach a user to a certain controller.

Hah, I looked it up. Even on Xbox it’s just some kind of auto login but the kid could switch profiles after.

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#56

Post by kridsdale3 »

bfdm wrote: post #35

I wish this had shown the modern interface for contrast with the others. I have no idea what the current Xbox UI looks like, so while I appreciate the legacy console examples I would have liked the reference point.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/experience

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#57

Post by kridsdale3 »

lunar_rover wrote: post #40

What truly made Wii/DS and Wii U/3DS era Nintendo OSes great are the built in games and mechanics that extend into other games as well. Loved collecting houses in ACNL and receiving Wii Mails from a Toad.

This loss of easter eggs in software, along with the rise of enshittification, both have the same source:

Software used to be made by Programmers, with taste and opinions, according to their talent and personality, in solo or small groups. Now they are run by Project Managers and Data Scientists chasing KPIs through engagement measurement tools and AB tests.

Fun easter eggs cannot be justified. They are cut. Personality doesn't move the metric as much as the mean / common denominator most basic thing. That's what ships.

All software and web content has gone this way in the last 13 years or so.

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#58

Post by phendrenad2 »

toast0 wrote: post #50
sanex wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean they don't HAVE to, unless there's some law I'm not aware of can't they just say "sorry not sorry colorblind people" or something. The MBAs will say HAVE to because maximizing shareholder value.

In the US, the ADA says you have to make reasonable accomodations, and it allows for private enforcement, so it's generally followed.

Accessibility lawsuits are common and frequent. Everyone gets them. It's sort of an open secret in the software world, not sure why it doesn't get discussed more. I guess the business people just consider it CODB, and developers prefer to believe it isn't real.

https://www.boia.org/blog/developer-of-pok%C3%A9mon-go-sued-...

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#59

Post by exmadscientist »

AlienRobot wrote: post #18
andai wrote: post #14

The other day I mused, "software used to look like an alien space ship. Now it looks like paperwork." I wasn't even thinking of the Xbox when I wrote that, just software in general in those days. Feels like everything had depth, character, texture... But reading this article, man the Xbox sounds amazing! I need to buy one now.

For a brief, a very brief moment, between beige Windows 98 and glass-like Windows Vista, we had a "fun" Windows XP. Thinking back it's a bit ironic. For most of history the OS'es didn't look fun, but it was that colorful one I'm most fond of.

And yet XP was widely mocked and hated at the time. Usually as the "Fisher-Price" OS. Personally I never cared too much, it might have been garish in places but the interface under the skin was solid enough: it got out of the way and let me do what I needed to. Likewise for the successor Aero Glass: blingy maybe, but ultimately pretty darn functional (at least by Win7, I somehow managed to skip Vista nearly entirely).

Where I drew the line was Win8: it started to get really hard to actually accomplish tasks in the OS. Win10 walked that back a bit, enough to be tolerable, then Win11 went the other way. I set up a Win11 desktop last week for the first time: what an exercise in unnecessary pain. (And Windows Spotlight backgrounds, one of the few recent MS shove-down-your-throat features that I actually like, doesn't even work reliably and there's no way to find out why. Absolutely no way. Despite an OS with a comprehensive logging system!)

So it's really not correlated with the skin: it's about the functional bones of the UI. A gaming machine needs a functional UI. (Just like everything else!) But the skin on top of that can, and probably should, have some visual distinctiveness and flair. A spinning cube, though... perhaps that is just a little bit too twee?

Re: The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

#60

Post by nitwit005 »

tom_ wrote: post #5
nottorp wrote: post #4

It's also the games. Let's count them: 1. A collection of logos of the 30 studios that contributed to the title somehow, skippable or not. 2. A bunch of EULAs that you have to click through at least on the first run. 3. An epilepsy warning that you always have to click through. I'm looking at you, Paradox and Vampire: Bloodlines 2. (For the record, I bought it extremely cheap, not at the launch price.) 4. On Playstat…

The Press Any Button screen is there so the game knows which input device is being used, and therefore (one way or another) which user, so it can apply any parental control/accessibility/etc. options required.

There's no need to force a special interaction. They usually have to interact with a menu regardless. You can know the controller then.

I had the impression this was on Sony's technical requirements list, so people have no choice.

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