The way I see it, if you were prepared to blow $300 on your 360 you should have spent $300 on a 32" LCD TV first. So yeah, QQ. Sorry I have no sympathy for people who blow money on HD systems but can't take the very reasonable costs of a TV to actually give that system a reasonable difference from last-gen visuals.

So basically, if you buy a so called "HD console," you should also spend an additional $500+ to buy an HDTV just to achieve the optimal experience on that console. And now they are going one step beyond and punishing the people who chose to stick with the cheaper SD TVs.

THIS is the sort of stubborn mentality that keeps the HD consoles and their supporting developers confined to an ever dwindling niche within gaming.

That "niche" has the same (well, slightly higher) market share as the Wii and even higher software sales. I don't understand where you're going with that ever-dwindling bit either, as HDTV and Blu-ray adoption are growing rapidly. There's multiple successful markets in the current industry. Stop attacking the one you don't own. It's even more ironic coming from you when the 3 games in your sig are all part of that same core gaming market you're attacking, and is not part of the expanded Wii audience your post claims to be supporting.

Buy an HD Monitor folks, they are so cheap and you can get great HD. If you are a PC person then you will enjoy it. I actually play more on HD Monitor than I do my Plasma. But that is just a fear of burn-in. Which I kinda did with Mass Effect Map HUD, but it went away!

Yet most of the developers pouring resources into the games are draining endless amounts of money.

Whatever, my intention was not to get into a Wii vs HD debate tonight, but my point is that NO game should EVER punish a user for chosing to NOT buy a specific product, particularly when that product is a $500+ HDTV. That is just absurd and really rubs me the wrong way. I just hope this doesnt become a trend. HD games should NEVER penalize SDTV users in ANY WAY. Period.

And before you say it, yes I do own a 360 and a good HDTV, so please dont pull the "dont knock what you dont have" card.

Where are you getting $500+? HDTVs don't get that expensive till you get to 42". Smaller, 22" HDTVs are $200 and less, and a good-sized 32" one is $300, barely more than you and I paid for our Wiis and the same price as an HD console and infinitely more useful than any single game system.

As far as penalizing SDTV users, they aren't even sold anymore. Only massive stores like Walmart have any at all, and even they are down to 2 or 3 max, and by the end of this year even those will be gone. Going even further than that, it doesn't even effect all SDTV users.

I'm not saying everyone should upgrade. I'm saying if you're going to bother coughing up the big money for an HD console you should. Frankly I think my Wii on my HDTV looks better than my 360 does when I plug it into an SDTV. It makes a big difference, and if you're blowing the kind of money the average gamer does per year on games, it's time to play it a little conservative for a few months and upgrade. We're past the point of complaining about this.

IF you bought a console who's entire advertising appeal is based around it being a part of the "HD Generation," join it.

I have nothing against a consumer being rewarded for "upgrading" to an HDTV. What I don't like is the fact that these consumers chosing NOT to upgrade, are actually being PUNSHIED for NOT dishing out an additional $400+ ( let's face it, any HDTV worth gaming on generally costs this much at the very least) ON TOP OF the $300 console they purchased. It is a blatant middle finger to a large portion of the gaming community, and it should not be tolerated. Then people wonder why HD gaming doesn't quite have mainstream appeal.. It costs you a damn arm and a leg for optimal experience.

Put yourself in the consumer's shoes.

If were on a budget and you did not own an HDTV but happened to own a 360, and decided to buy Mass Effect 2, hoping for an excellent game, and instead you get text that is nearly unreadable, how would you feel about that? Personally, I would sell the game, and maybe even my Xbox 360 on principle. Rewarding an HD user is one thing. Penalizing a non HD user is something completely different, and should NEVER happen.

Just get used to it.

It does seem counterintuitive, but... different strokes for different folks I guess. If you only paid $199 for an Xbox, maybe you wouldn't consider it any sort of premium experience that required a better display.

But seriously, you don't even need to spend $300 on a 32" HDTV. PC displays like a 1680x1050 could be bought for about $150 if you were on a tight budget and didn't already own a PC display because you don't use a desktop PC.

Okay, we're talking about text here. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to design a program that scales up text for a low-res display. I'm quite confident that there are ways to do it that won't somehow gimp the game for HD users. Apparently Banjo Kazooie was even able to fix its problem retroactively.

IMO, anytime you demand that the customer meets you on your terms when it would be a small thing to meet the customer's terms, you have made a business mistake. Bioware should be trying to sell games, not HDTVs. Requiring HD in order for text to be readable is a needless barrier to potential sales that could be easily resolved.