6 ms·

The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces

47 points by PaulHoule 7mo ago

PaulHoule 7mo ago
"When I powered on my Xbox Series S for the first time... It felt no different from Windows 11." (1) No accident (2) Ever see a Windows phone? That was the whole idea.
- cHaOs667 7mo ago
  But the Windows Phone UI had sooo much personality - every phone looked different, showed different information etc. My own phone changed every couple of months and it feld sooo good to have the changing tiles with information, pictures etc. I was a huge fan of the concept.
- krige 7mo ago
  Windows Phone had a damn lot more personality than android or iphone back then, let alone now.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
They also turned into ad billboards and digital storefronts.
nottorp 7mo ago
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 Playstation at least, the silly "press any button" screen. Why can't you give me the menu directly? 5. Another silly warning "this game has an autosave function". You may have to click through it or not. 6. If Rockstar, try to trick the user into launching the online component every time.
- tom_ 7mo ago
  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.
  - nottorp 7mo ago
    Which input device out of my total of one controller that is on? On a console that has already asked me who's playing when I turned it on?
    - probably_wrong 7mo ago
      The console knows all that, but does the game know all of that too? I'm not a console developer but perhaps the game doesn't have permissions to know which devices are on, only which devices are sending key presses right now.
    - tom_ 7mo ago
      Feedback regarding the ins and outs of the UX would be better directed at Sony rather than me. But it accommodates the case where you haven't connected the controller yet. I can't remember if it's Playstation or Xbox that does this, but the game can start out in a sandboxed state, and explicit user input is required for the system to grant it access to the gamepad and the associated user.
  - BoppreH 7mo ago
    I've seen computer games where any input device is accepted, and on-screen instructions refer to the last type of device used. Seemed like a good idea. And how does input-based parental control work? Do you hide the adult's controller?
    - tom_ 7mo ago
      On first use of the controller after a reboot, you're prompted to select which user is playing. Saved games and achievements and whatnot are per-user. If you've got a child in the household, you're expected to tag their user as such, which imposes some restrictions on their account. Then set up an access code on your user, so the child can't log in as you.
asimovDev 7mo ago
I was greatly disappointed to learn back in 2020 that PS5 didn't even support themes. The only customization it offers is disabling / enabling sound and changing a background to a screenshot for one of the menu items which is a dashboard (with customizable widgets at least) with your friends' activities, new store arrivals or whatever you choose. Changing to an appropriate theme when there were holidays or when I beat a good game that stays in my mind was something that I didn't know I would miss once switching to a new generation.
- fredoralive 7mo ago
  It does now have a limited set of themes based on previous consoles. Initially a 40th anniversary special feature that ended up sticking. But yeah, it’s a bit odd we’ve gone from Sony providing the tools to make your own theme with the PS3 to basically nothing with the PS5.
  - asimovDev 7mo ago
    oh yeah, it turns out I even had one of these themes enabled (PS3 one). I got so used to it I forgot it's not how the console usually looks. Still a far cry from custom icons and animated backgrounds
andai 7mo ago
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.
- AlienRobot 7mo ago
  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.
  - towledev 7mo ago
    XP was dope. Long-as-hell start menu with 80 folders.
  - exmadscientist 7mo ago
    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?
- deleted 7mo ago
functionmouse 7mo ago
Cool interfaces don't make billions of dollars. Match-3 games and microtransactions and season passes and skinner boxes make billions of dollars. You understand, right?
- nixpulvis 7mo ago
  Yea, we gotta teach kids how to use e-commerce sites, so the games should feel like Amazon.
- luqtas 7mo ago
  so why not offer season passes and lootboxes for special UI on interfaces? /j
- GuB-42 7mo ago
  > Match-3 games and microtransactions and season passes and skinner boxes make billions of dollars. Only if they have a cool interface. What make people play a match-3 game over another match-3 game that has the exact same gameplay? It is the way it is presented. What are the most popular microtransactions? Cosmetics. Why are people buying season passes instead of just content DLCs? Again, mostly cosmetics. Cool interfaces make money. I don't know why they stopped doing it for the console itself, they have their reasons, I guess.
nixpulvis 7mo ago
Nothing like going from Toonami to the original Xbox while drinking a green monster. Peak childhood right there.
thenfcm 7mo ago
"Even today I can burn hours clicking around the Wii" I mean, the menu's fine but its not that exciting
- Waterluvian 7mo ago
  I can burn hours clicking around the PS5 UI. No seriously, I’m lost. Send help.
  - chuchurocka 7mo ago
    It's our cereal box and shampoo...
Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
TBH they have accessibility to keep in mind - visual contrast, screen reader support, etc. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but I've yet to find a great example of something that is both accessible and full of character.
- sanex 7mo ago
  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.
  - toast0 7mo ago
    In the US, the ADA says you have to make reasonable accomodations, and it allows for private enforcement, so it's generally followed.
    - phendrenad2 7mo ago
      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-for-alleged-web-accessibility-issues https://www.boia.org/blog/developer-of-pok%C3%A9mon-go-sued-...
havblue 7mo ago
The settings are a lot more intricate than they used to be, especially video settings. So I'm guessing a lot of the intent is to present the information as clearly as possible and call it a day. Direct users towards big pictures for the games and for the store and hopefully have a wizard for the user to get on the internet.
bfdm 7mo ago
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.
- kridsdale3 7mo ago
  https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/experience https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/experience
dfxm12 7mo ago
I miss when you turned on your console and booted directly into the game. Sony's XMB is a terrible UI. Things are unintuitive to find and take forever to get there even when you do know where you're going. Something like the NDS UI is at least fast and easy to use, aided by the touch interface. However, I bought a console to play games, not to click through a bunch of settings (that's what a PC is for!).
donatj 7mo ago
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 virtual cartridge licensing system. I genuinely hate the Switch home screen. I would rather be booted into the "More Games" UI instead of this dumb horizontal scroll of a handful of most recent games and then having to scroll over to pick "more games". If you want to be minimal, at least make it easy to pick the game I want. I've got a 65" TV, give me the grid, not 4 titles at a time! Most of all, BRING BACK THE FUN. Colors, music, silly interactions. Sure, add the option to turn it off, because a vocal minority hate that stuff, but how many of us have the Wii store music burnt into our brains?
- kiyundai 7mo ago
  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
- vanchor3 7mo ago
  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".
lunar_rover 7mo ago
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.
- kridsdale3 7mo ago
  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.
  - xgkickt 7mo ago
    For big games, it’s a legal thing. Ever since the Hot Coffee debacle, we are not allowed to hide content, all of which has to be approved by legal.
gavmor 7mo ago
Sure, when these things were novel the friction was delightful. Now that the magic is gone, I want to finish configuring my device ASAP and get back to the games.

47 points by PaulHoule 7mo ago

"When I powered on my Xbox Series S for the first time... It felt no different from Windows 11." (1) No accident (2) Ever see a Windows phone? That was the whole idea.

cHaOs667 7mo ago
But the Windows Phone UI had sooo much personality - every phone looked different, showed different information etc. My own phone changed every couple of months and it feld sooo good to have the changing tiles with information, pictures etc. I was a huge fan of the concept.
krige 7mo ago
Windows Phone had a damn lot more personality than android or iphone back then, let alone now.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago

They also turned into ad billboards and digital storefronts.

nottorp 7mo ago

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 Playstation at least, the silly "press any button" screen. Why can't you give me the menu directly? 5. Another silly warning "this game has an autosave function". You may have to click through it or not. 6. If Rockstar, try to trick the user into launching the online component every time.

tom_ 7mo ago
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.
- nottorp 7mo ago
  Which input device out of my total of one controller that is on? On a console that has already asked me who's playing when I turned it on?
  - probably_wrong 7mo ago
    The console knows all that, but does the game know all of that too? I'm not a console developer but perhaps the game doesn't have permissions to know which devices are on, only which devices are sending key presses right now.
  - tom_ 7mo ago
    Feedback regarding the ins and outs of the UX would be better directed at Sony rather than me. But it accommodates the case where you haven't connected the controller yet. I can't remember if it's Playstation or Xbox that does this, but the game can start out in a sandboxed state, and explicit user input is required for the system to grant it access to the gamepad and the associated user.
- BoppreH 7mo ago
  I've seen computer games where any input device is accepted, and on-screen instructions refer to the last type of device used. Seemed like a good idea. And how does input-based parental control work? Do you hide the adult's controller?
  - tom_ 7mo ago
    On first use of the controller after a reboot, you're prompted to select which user is playing. Saved games and achievements and whatnot are per-user. If you've got a child in the household, you're expected to tag their user as such, which imposes some restrictions on their account. Then set up an access code on your user, so the child can't log in as you.

asimovDev 7mo ago

I was greatly disappointed to learn back in 2020 that PS5 didn't even support themes. The only customization it offers is disabling / enabling sound and changing a background to a screenshot for one of the menu items which is a dashboard (with customizable widgets at least) with your friends' activities, new store arrivals or whatever you choose. Changing to an appropriate theme when there were holidays or when I beat a good game that stays in my mind was something that I didn't know I would miss once switching to a new generation.

fredoralive 7mo ago
It does now have a limited set of themes based on previous consoles. Initially a 40th anniversary special feature that ended up sticking. But yeah, it’s a bit odd we’ve gone from Sony providing the tools to make your own theme with the PS3 to basically nothing with the PS5.
- asimovDev 7mo ago
  oh yeah, it turns out I even had one of these themes enabled (PS3 one). I got so used to it I forgot it's not how the console usually looks. Still a far cry from custom icons and animated backgrounds

andai 7mo ago

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.

AlienRobot 7mo ago
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.
- towledev 7mo ago
  XP was dope. Long-as-hell start menu with 80 folders.
- exmadscientist 7mo ago
  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?
deleted 7mo ago

functionmouse 7mo ago

Cool interfaces don't make billions of dollars. Match-3 games and microtransactions and season passes and skinner boxes make billions of dollars. You understand, right?

nixpulvis 7mo ago
Yea, we gotta teach kids how to use e-commerce sites, so the games should feel like Amazon.
luqtas 7mo ago
so why not offer season passes and lootboxes for special UI on interfaces? /j
GuB-42 7mo ago
> Match-3 games and microtransactions and season passes and skinner boxes make billions of dollars. Only if they have a cool interface. What make people play a match-3 game over another match-3 game that has the exact same gameplay? It is the way it is presented. What are the most popular microtransactions? Cosmetics. Why are people buying season passes instead of just content DLCs? Again, mostly cosmetics. Cool interfaces make money. I don't know why they stopped doing it for the console itself, they have their reasons, I guess.

nixpulvis 7mo ago

Nothing like going from Toonami to the original Xbox while drinking a green monster. Peak childhood right there.

thenfcm 7mo ago

"Even today I can burn hours clicking around the Wii" I mean, the menu's fine but its not that exciting

Waterluvian 7mo ago
I can burn hours clicking around the PS5 UI. No seriously, I’m lost. Send help.
- chuchurocka 7mo ago
  It's our cereal box and shampoo...

Cthulhu_ 7mo ago

TBH they have accessibility to keep in mind - visual contrast, screen reader support, etc. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but I've yet to find a great example of something that is both accessible and full of character.

sanex 7mo ago
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.
- toast0 7mo ago
  In the US, the ADA says you have to make reasonable accomodations, and it allows for private enforcement, so it's generally followed.
  - phendrenad2 7mo ago
    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-for-alleged-web-accessibility-issues https://www.boia.org/blog/developer-of-pok%C3%A9mon-go-sued-...

havblue 7mo ago

The settings are a lot more intricate than they used to be, especially video settings. So I'm guessing a lot of the intent is to present the information as clearly as possible and call it a day. Direct users towards big pictures for the games and for the store and hopefully have a wizard for the user to get on the internet.

bfdm 7mo ago

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.

kridsdale3 7mo ago
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/experience https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/experience

dfxm12 7mo ago

I miss when you turned on your console and booted directly into the game. Sony's XMB is a terrible UI. Things are unintuitive to find and take forever to get there even when you do know where you're going. Something like the NDS UI is at least fast and easy to use, aided by the touch interface. However, I bought a console to play games, not to click through a bunch of settings (that's what a PC is for!).

donatj 7mo ago

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 virtual cartridge licensing system. I genuinely hate the Switch home screen. I would rather be booted into the "More Games" UI instead of this dumb horizontal scroll of a handful of most recent games and then having to scroll over to pick "more games". If you want to be minimal, at least make it easy to pick the game I want. I've got a 65" TV, give me the grid, not 4 titles at a time! Most of all, BRING BACK THE FUN. Colors, music, silly interactions. Sure, add the option to turn it off, because a vocal minority hate that stuff, but how many of us have the Wii store music burnt into our brains?

kiyundai 7mo ago
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
vanchor3 7mo ago
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".

lunar_rover 7mo ago

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.

kridsdale3 7mo ago
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.
- xgkickt 7mo ago
  For big games, it’s a legal thing. Ever since the Hot Coffee debacle, we are not allowed to hide content, all of which has to be approved by legal.

gavmor 7mo ago

Sure, when these things were novel the friction was delightful. Now that the magic is gone, I want to finish configuring my device ASAP and get back to the games.