Here's the thing, and since you've been a fan from the beginning then you will know this well. All platforms in all regions will have the same features to avoid as much subterfuge as possible. For the sake of argument lets say they attempt to satisfy you by providing you with a PC specific UI. Your happy now and you shut-up and go away but now in your place is someone else saying that they want that same PC style UI on the console. Where will it end? Why should Bethesda take flak from consolers when your going to get the UI you want ANYWAY.

Besides, the installation and usage of Darnified UI has been turnkey since FO3. Honestly if your on a PC you have very little to complain about. Bethesda has created and perpetuated this modding community for 8+ yrs now and is making good use of it. If you refuse to use mods well that is your problem, they have given you the power.

For the record, Morrowind's UI did work quite well on consoles, and the difference between the PC and Xbox version wasn't that huge (the PC version supported windowed menus, whereas the console version used multiple menu pages you tabbed between, similar to Oblivion).

Not taking away from Darn as he does nice work but it's not really as good as a properly designed UI is it? It still uses the basic unintuitive structure and the laborious to access tabbed system just as our hotkeys are limited and our ability to remap and map are too. Compare that to Moorowinds native system and tell me it's not a giant step backwards.

If your really suggesting the role of the modding community is to fix the game for Beth (are we to expect another giant community patch) then why am i paying Beth and not the modders?

Seriously. We live in a time where almost every PC user has a choice between paying for their game or not and lazy ports that feel like a slap in the face to the community that helped build the series... Well that's not the way to inspire customer loyalty.

DEM PESIMISTS

I just had a look at a few videos, it seems pretty good indeed.

And for the PC it was great. Besides the journal system, which was a little messy. You could move menus around, resize them, make them stick to your HUD, or hide them completely.

For the fans. Bethesda has to dedicate a lot of effort to their PC users.A vastly improved UI and visuals will satisfy the majority of the players on that platform.

Yup. And also a happy, happy world with no wars or diseases...

Seriously now. I'd love Bethesda to take the Crysis 2 way: designed for max quality on PC, but equally ported to consoles. That way we PC users would have the best version in all aspects, and console users would still be able to enjoy their watered-down version. Everybody's happy.

But doing it the opposite...it's a bad way IMO.

Only thing we know right now is menu button brings up 4 point star, up is skills, down is map/jounal, left/right is items/spells. up makes your char look at the sky where the stars tell you how you're faring, down looks at the ground and shows you the lay of the land, left (or right, dont remember) makes your char open his pack and peek in it, other direction makes you char open his spell book. look at page 54 of the magazine. page 55 shows a screenshot of the up (skills) option. looks decent, but simplistic and very console-safe. not that i mind the look and feel at all, but usage of Shift-click for stack select and ctrl-click for single select would be very nice and, in my opinion, sufficient.

-begin violins
And to all the console users, don't take the console bashing to harshly, us PC gamers are a dying breed and we know it. every year the shelves get shorter and fewer, and the games get simpler and less defined, and aparently some of use unleash our anger for this fact improperly at people who are not responsible for the problems of a world that is in desperate need for security and profit at any cost. Console purchases keep TES cames comming, and that is a fact.

As a PC gamer, I apologize for the 3rd degree burns we inflicted for the past 2 ES games, and the ones that are still comming.
-end violins in slow fade.

Right, because any sucessful company maintains that success by giving special attention to their lowest demographic. I'm a PC and I know I'm a minority so I'll take what I can get. Now if they abolish this modding community then I'm gone. I'm not going to hang around here and btch about it, I just won't buy their games anymore.

Given the interface described, it sounds like it'd be trivial to add hotkeys for the PC version that could skip the "menu star" step.

Judging by the screen shots they are making a console version and porting it to PC (no sane developer will make a huge scrolling skill menu with 5 skills at the screen at one time). Understandable - console game has to be approved by a dozen of different companies that supervise console content, if they make PC version first, than there is a good chance that some of the games features will be banned for one console or another and than people will be upset about the versions not being equal. But that does mean less fun for the PC gamers, who technically don't have to abide by console market censure and rules, but will have to by default.

Consoles, mainly the Xbox 360, make Bethesda the most money...

You Sir is one of a kind, and have earned my respect. Hail to you!

Actually, that's the majority opinion among console gamers, at least as far as I'm aware.

I agree, to each his own, but they shouldn't make the PC gamers 'suffer', because of the console limitations. Don't get me wrong, as far as I see, the game looks promising and I like everything I have seen so far, but I just can't deal with console ports, that's why I 'ignore' them.

O RLY ????

Then sir please, care to explain the huge success that was Morrowind ported "to console" and not "from console".
I would like to see you elaborate on that.

Console game quality is crap, it was SO in lack of good title that any mediocre game made for PC was a sucess in the console market.
And the result now is crappy games all around save for Anomalies that are more rare than uniques articacts in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

I'm starting to get really tired of "consoles are where money is" comment. It' is a MYTH - the most financially successful gaming franchise of all time on any platform is The Sims series - it's is an official industry fact, if you don't believe me, go see EA market reports. And Sims are peaty much non existent on consoles, the sale figures where drawn from PC version only by the time of the last years report (that's when I checked it out last) and it was quite impressive.
Other games are harder to track, but believe when you look through the year long worldwide sales docs you find some interesting figure, while consoles are popular in USA they are considerably less popular in big part of Europe and close to non existent in Russia, and yes, games sell there to, and in large amounts.
The reason for console versions being first to develop is not money, but the fact that porting from console to PC is much easier, for vitreous reasons, some of them nothing to do with tech, than the other way around. That's ll. And MULTI PLATFORM is where the money really is.

I agree with you. Also, every game that is released for the consoles are being made on the PC.

One for both as long it suits the PC requirement and possibilities. Who can more can less, and less = console.

I'm not sir, I'm madam And I never sad anything about games not bing successful, I'm talking about the difficulty of the process for developers - Microsoft and Sony have aright to ban things form their consoles, so every time a game for a console is made it has to go through the approval process, Morrowind had to be approved by them before being ported. And while they are probably reasonable people and woun't block a port of a good game, the fact remains that they CAN and have a legal right to. And no developer wants to make a game and than find out that it's banned form one of the intended systems. PC has no approval comities except for some governments (no nudity in Malaysia, no drugs in Australia an so on) but that's easier to avoid than Microsoft and Sony.
They went through a lot of legal dancing around to port Morrowind, I bet they'd want to make the process as painless as they can for Skyrim, and that means checking with Sonly and Microsoft first - so console version it is.

I won't care as long as I have shortcuts and I can scroll through my spells without having to go to the menu everytime.

Most lucrative game in the world is WoW so lets drop this PCs make Devs no money rubbish.

They make money from their PC version so they should take the time to put some effort into that version otherwise they shouldn't bother releasing it. PC Gamers don't like being made to feel like 2nd class citizens and i know console users wouldn't either. It's not even comparable but imagine if the 360 version had things like "press triangle to..." the uproar would be massive and it doesn't even affect the game near as much as the barely functional and not fit for purpose menu system does.

That s the heart of the problem. They are made for console first and THEN for PC.

Console just sell well on USA, and i can t freaking understand why (WII out of the equation) people set for something that is less performant, cost more bangs per bucks and is extremely limited.

So the PC gamers suffer because they Inherit weaker than could be games. I m Sorry thats the reality. And Oblivion is merely one example.

Game are made to console not because its where the money is, its because console being more limited you can set to do less and gain the same under the excuse console are limited and it would be expensive to adapt the to PC quality, in standart and execution.
Bean counters and shareholders don t want to know anything beyond that.

Actually your right, and furthermore it is not accurate to say that console gaming is where all the money is. http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2010/04/19/hear-that-knocking-sound-its-pc-gaming/ This myth is something that console users often employ, but the facts just don't speak to it.

While true there are alot of consoles out there, PC's are coming down in price so fast and mobility is becoming such a key feature that the current consoles are already outdated by the future of consumer electronics. This year at CES we saw the first processor designed to run a Windows OS on a mobile device - which means that portable platforms similar to the iPad are not far off now that will run games just like a desk-top PC will. Maybe not as powerful yet, but the trend is in this direction. You don't see Xbox 360 or PS/3 coming out with a portable version like that, and nor will we - there will be new generation consoles (heck the PS/3 is already cracked). The future is in portables, and right now the industry is linking-up the PC world of Windows with the portable world of hand-helds, we saw it all over the CES show last week - That is what's happening right now (all Myths aside).

Bottom line is that Skyrim IS going to be targetted at the 3 platforms on which they can make games and money; PC, Xbox and PS/3. There's no wishing around this, no point in debating its pros or cons - that is the world we live in. To say that PC gaming is not the future is ignorant of what's really happening today, and I fully expect to be able to buy a PC in 3 or 4 years thats the size of an iPad and as strong as my desktop with a video jack for my TV or Monitor. That is a realistic future I can look forward to.

Miax

Sorry?

In my experience, "consoles are were all the money is" is an argument used exclusively by PC gamers as part of the standard argument about why their opinion is better.