It doesn't say what kind it is, I know it's old and it's about 15" wide

unfortunately bethesda does not plan to fix the issue with SDTV's.

Link?

i don't have a link, but if you scroll back through the pages far enough to novemberish, back when the problems with SDTV were still being discussed, a bunch of people were posting their correspondences with bethesda customer service re: the cutoff problems on SDTV and the unreadable text on SDTV, who were telling them that this is not something they were fixing since its not a bug, they made the game not to be compatible with SDTV, sorry for the inconvenience.

If you can't link to an official Bethesda statement please don't spread rumors or things you just think you remember seeing.

If you can't link to an official Bethesda statement please don't spread rumors or things you just think you remember seeing.

I emailed Bethesda support a couple days ago and they finally got back to me. Unfortunately, they didn't even read what I sent them and instead gave me some canned response similar to the useless advice we've been getting on these forums. Here is my original email, followed by the response:

First off, I love Skyrim. You guys have done a tremendous job. But I and thousands of other people have a technical problem. The edges of the screen are cut off at least an inch on all sides. The small text I can play through, but I can't see my compass or the updates at the top left of the screen at all which makes the game virtually unplayable. There are numerous threads about this issue on the gamesas forums. For reference, I am playing on a 20 inch SDTV with 480i resolution on the Xbox 360 20GB Pro console from 2006 I've tried changing the Xbox's Display settings to Widescreen but the edges are still cut off and it makes the text totally unreadable. I have played hundreds of games on this platform of all different resolutions and never have I seen screen cutoff. As I said, small text is NOT the problem. I understand I am using somewhat outdated technology but I got this TV brand new when the Xbox 360 first came out and the Xbox itself supports SDTVs so why doesn't Skyrim? Please give us the option to change the aspect ratio or move the HUD around slightly in the next patch. Plenty of other current games for Xbox 360 have this simple option. At the very least, please move the compass down a few centimeters. There are many of us with this problem and I would hate to see your company lose fans and future purchases because of something that could easily be remedied in a patch as the developers of Borderlands did after their game released with the same problem. Thank you for your time.

Hi ******

We're sorry to hear that you're experiencing this difficulty with the game. There is a way to set your Xbox's display resolution to optimize your experience. You will have to talk to Microsoft customer support for this. To obtain support in the US, Canada, or Puerto Rico for the Xbox, please call 1-800-4MY-XBOX (469-9269). Alternatively, you may want to try playing Skyrim on a different display. If you have any other issues, please feel free to contact us again.

Best regards,
******

In other words, they don't give a [censored].

I was the one that got the response in which they said it was not going to be possible to fix. Here is the entire email conversation with names edited out for privacy purposes.

My original email that I sent to Bethesda:

Message: To Whom it May Concern,

I'd like to start by saying that I love Skyrim. Having said that, I am experiencing a problem that I hope you will address. The text on the screen is extremely small and very difficult to read. I am using a 40+ inch SD TV that is using 4:3 resolution. I know it's not the state of the art TV that we have these days but I frankly can't afford an HD TV. Besides that, every other 360 game I own has text that is big enough to read without any problems. If you could fix this one issue in a patch, I would greatly appreciate it.

Sincerely,
[deleted]

Here is the response I got:
Hey [deleted],

We apologize for the inconvenience, but unfortunately there is no way to fix this problem. Although Skyrim can be played on a SD TV, the game was made to be more geared towards an actual widescreen HD TV. Not playing on a supported TV set would definitely cause the problems you are experiencing. We once again apologize for the inconvenience and not being able to assist you today. It is a great game and I hope you still consider playing it even through the annoyances. Thank you for your time and if you come across any other issues, please do not hesitate and ask.

Best Regards,
[deleted]

If you think I'm lying, that's your right but it doesn't change the truth. Frankly, I'm still really disappointed in Bethesda's decision to not address this problem. I have a dozen 360 games and this is the only game that has a problem like this. I'd like to echo another comment that another user made and that is if the 360 is designed to be compatible with an SDTV, then the games should also be compatible. If they want to make the Xbox 720 HDTV only, that's fine but Bethesda shouldn't pretend that the 360 has any such restriction. That's my gripe and it's very frustrating for me and MANY MANY others as you can tell from the numerous threads that have appeared.

My recommendation is for everyone that plays on an SDTV to send an email to Bethesda and express your concerns. The only way they will change their mind is if they see a lot of complaints about it.

its possible the email correspondences were fake, but since there is no patch info talking about fixes to SDTV, i think its far more likely they are real.

also i am not an expert on the subject, but the back of my skyrim case lists 480p, and in tiny letters at the bottom "HD requires cables and an HD compatible display." i always thought 480p was not HD.

None of the emails posted say that they aren't going to patch the problem, just that there's not a way to fix it currently. That's the problem with just posting that Bethesda said something without actually checking and it's how bad information gets spread around and people start taking it as the truth. I'm not trying to be the "forum police," just asking that you check your facts before posting them.

Yeah, it's not... but wait a minute, the PS3 box advertises 480p support? If it doesn't fit on 4:3 screen, that's... a lie.


I'm not sure what "facts" have to do with anything when blatant and direct implications are here, instead. Bethesda very rarely every say anything factual and many things they've officially said turned out not to be facts. There are no "facts" for a large variety of discussion topics on these forums, but when they so strongly say this is how the game was meant to be played, there is no way to fix it, and we hope you'll continue playing despite the issue, it's pretty evident that they're not planning on fixing it.

Yeah, it's not... but wait a minute, the PS3 box advertises 480p support? If it doesn't fit on 4:3 screen, that's... a lie.


I'm not sure what "facts" have to do with anything when blatant and direct implications are here, instead. Bethesda very rarely ever say anything factual and many things they've officially said turned out not to be facts. There are no "facts" for a large variety of discussion topics on these forums, but when they so strongly say this is how the game was meant to be played, there is no way to fix it, and we hope you'll continue playing despite the issue, it's pretty evident that they're not planning on fixing it.

So can you show me where they even implied that they're never going to fix it? Obviously whether they plan to fix it or not they hope people will keep playing. If they're going to fix it and somebody returns their game then that person won't ever know that it was fixed. Saying that in no way implies anything about their patch intentions.

Most games today are "meant to be played" on HDTV's, but that doesn't mean that companies don't make efforts to get them playable on SDTV's as well.

All I'm asking is that people not come into a thread and announce what Bethesda's actual plans are when Bethesda hasn't said anything of the sort. That's the type of thing that gets people all pissed off about how Bethesda isn't going to fix this problem or that problem when Bethesda has never officially said anything about it.

None of the emails posted say that they aren't going to patch the problem, just that there's not a way to fix it currently. That's the problem with just posting that Bethesda said something without actually checking and it's how bad information gets spread around and people start taking it as the truth. I'm not trying to be the "forum police," just asking that you check your facts before posting them.

"There is no way to fix this problem."

my suggestion is of course that you contact them yourself and let them tell you.

You're reading into that line FAR too much. All that means is "right now it's not fixable" as in "there's no current workaround." Inference, decution, perception, and common sense say that absolutely it CAN be fixed because loads of other games work just fine on SDTV's. That service rep was saying that there's no way for the customer to fix the problem. Obviously Bethesda can fix it.

Well that would be really bad customer service and a dumb business idea to tell your customers, "Stop playing the game." That'd be like going to McDonald's and having them tell you that you should come back another day because they're out of fries so you shouldn't eat any of their food until they have it all again.

Yeah that doesn't work. Know why? Because customer service agents aren't allowed to give out any information that hasn't been already given to the public. If Bethesda were going to fix something like this calling customer service wouldn't be the only way to find out. The first place it'd be announced is in a sticky right at the top of these forums. Tech support doesn't get information on patch notes but maybe a day or two earlier than the rest of us.

Well that would be really bad customer service and a dumb business idea to tell your customers, "Stop playing the game." That'd be like going to McDonald's and having them tell you that you should come back another day because they're out of fries so you shouldn't eat any of their food until they have it all again.

arguing against your point here too. yes it is a very dumb business idea to tell your customers to stop playing the game, and if you recognize this, then why are you arguing that when bethesda says "please continue to play our game on a different display", that they really mean they want you to hold out til there is a fix, and not that they are just giving you a pithy customer service line because they obviously can't tell you to quit playing their game?

Well I'm not saying for sure that they are going to fix it. The truth is we really don't know whether they will or not, that's the only point I'm making here is that it's unknown.