Are user interfaces going to be dumbed down with the console/big-screen push?

I'm a little worried that Steam's consolization of the PC experience is going to influence how game developers design their UIs.

I find the newly unveiled Steam controller humorous because regardless of how well it works, how is anyone going to play something like Dragon Age (with its small but complex UI) on a traditionally sized HDTV based on average seating distance?

I'm afraid of developers simply developing a giant, dumbed-down UI and callling it a day because the greater powers suggest that playing PC games in the living room is actually progress.

That's been happening since forever. But, no - I don't think SteamOS and their new controller will make things worse. If it's very high sensitivity, the UI design shouldn't need to change. That said, IWD2 has a much better interface than DA:O, and it could easily be navigated with touch or trackpad devices.

I gave up on PC gaming a few years ago. I made the right choice. Hopefully AMD can save it with Mantle, if not who cares someone will....eventually or not.

Making draw calls faster isn't going to change PC gaming. I don't know what's lead you to believe that would be the case.

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

"consolization" revolves around catering the ux towards inadequate input like thumbsticks and dpads, not sure why you would associate this with steam or some console push, since this "dumbing down" happened ages ago. though with valve at the helm I don't think we have much to worry about in the way of poor controlls, going by their steam controller specs if anything we will see an improvement in overall interface design and compatibility, if this thing becomes ubiquitous.

teletran8 said:

I gave up on PC gaming a few years ago. I made the right choice. Hopefully AMD can save it with Mantle, if not who cares someone will....eventually or not.

Click to expand...

Did you mean AMD's proprietary API could encourage PC exclusive titles? I don't think so.

Games today are developed cross platform not because of PC hardware performance. There's nothing wrong with the performance. They are cross platform because of the console's market size. No any API on PC is going to make more gamer ditch consoles for PC, because performance isn't the reason why console gamer chose to game on consoles.

Mainstream games will always be cross platform. The only thing we can change is the attention PC gets. Right now, some companies are not taking PC platform as serious and we get either poorly ported version, or delays. Hopefully Steambox will help PC platform get more attention from these dev.

How would it be any different playing on your average side HDTV in your living room? I do it now but use a M+KB. If the controller replicates the M+kb experience why would the UI need to change?

Sadly, yes.

However, we will still have our .ini/.cfg files, 3rd party tools and shit.

I was playing a game in Big Picture mode (Castlevania LoS) with a 360 gamepad and wanted to research something. I go to the web browser and I'm stuck using the controller as a text input device, it wouldn't take input from my keyboard. Not sure if this is a Big Picture mode problem or a game-related problem but hell if I was going to type with a gamepad.