The future of gaming?

I am noticing an alarming trend in current-generation video game consoles, although for my own part I only own an X-Box 360. Perhaps you have heard of the infamous "pixels of death" from The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena? No? You'll know what I mean if you play it, and if you have, then you know... unless you played it on an HDTV.

On my second play-through of that game, I ran through those parts of the game on an HDTV and noticed that it was no longer a solitary white pixel or two of doom, but an actual recognizable critter. Hmmm... could it be that gaming studios assume the majority of their gamers have upgraded their televisions to something that isn't CRT? Isn't that a bit of an unfair assumption?

My television isn't that old, but it is definitely of the CRT variety. It is not flat-screen, HD, etc. It runs original XBox games just fine, perhaps because the publishers had not made the assumptive leap that everyone would have an almost computer monitor sitting around to play games on. I even spent quite a lot of time reading lore books in Morrowind right on the screen of my not-HDTV.

Now, I have to get up, walk over and squint at the menus and text in Dragon Age: Origins. This is frustrating as not only is there a lot of text in the game, but even comparing armor gets painfully tedious. I'm really disappointed that gaming companies haven't kept us lower-income gamers in mind, nevermind anyone who paid good money for a television that is now becoming... outdated. I understand that part of what is happening is that game designers are trying to take advantage of higher resolution screens, but in the meantime it seems to leave us little guys out. How many of us, I must wonder, are "the little guys"?

It could be this transition has been going on for longer than I've noticed, but then I'm new to the 360 world. My previous most-current generation console is an original XBox and before that comes... a PS1. But still. Come on, gamer companies. I've seen game ports fail due to graphics issues and such, but to not even be able to properly read what's on the screen? Tsk.

And to close, I must now derail into how much I HEART VIN DIESEL because it's pretty damn obligatory.