It feels like once the first early adopter went out and spent way too much on a plasma TV, the video game industry was done with SD.  The HD generation has brought an increased focus on visual presentation, resulting in some truly gorgeous gaming experiences that we could hardly have even imagined just ten years ago.  Sadly, it also brought an epidemic of games with tiny, HD-optimized on-screen text and menus.  These overlays look great on a 46” LCD TVs, but on a CRT TV, they’re often unreadable.  Rare famously patched the issue in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, but most publishers have essentially ignored this issue, and some teams, like those behind Mass Effect 2 and Dead Rising, have come out and stated that they would not change the text size.  One team, though, is finally addressing the problem before players even have a chance to complain.

Square Enix’s upcoming shooter, Vanquish, saw its demo released yesterday, revealing the inclusion of SDTV mode.  This mode makes on-screen text and icons larger, and more clearly visible on smaller TVs.  It may not seem like much, but for players who want to know how much ammo they have, but don't want to spend $1000 to do so, it's pretty big.

The HDTV market has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years, and it’s estimated that nearly half of all American households include an HD set, but SDTVs are still prevalent across the world.  Publishers who ignore this fact run the risk of alienating the tens (if not hundreds) of millions of SDTV owning gamers.  Square Enix’s tactic seems like a perfect, simple way to resolve the issue, and one that should have been thought of years ago.  It can’t cost much extra to include larger versions of text and icons, so why haven’t more companies used this strategy?  Perhaps there is a perceived stigma on games that cater to non-HD gamers, but if this is the case, publishers need to get past this idea.  There’s nothing wrong with including features that make the game more accessible to those without a newer TV, and I expect that more and more publishers will adopt this strategy in the future.