At some point in this millenium, it became ubiquitous in games to ask for a button press before switching to the main menu and it has become a pet peeve off mine.
Why is that there? It’s your main menu so ugly that you have to shield players from it? Why can I not double click the game Icon, go to the kitchen to get coffee and return to the PC/console to find myself in the main menu ready to continue my game? Seriously, cui bono? Sometimes, they even show a different screen before that press, which some artist got paid for creating, so the developer is also losing (a tiny amount of) money here.
I honestly just don’t get the point of these screens.
Bonus negative points for games that only check DLC after that button press instead of any other point of the losing process. Calling a server could easily be threaded while the game assets are loaded since it takes very little hardware load to do so. But no, I get to wait an additional 10 seconds because the game devs want me to for no apparent reason.
On a related note: just allow players to auto skip intros, please. Just put an checkbox in the settings, so that everyone can see it once.
It lets the game see which controller or input method you are using. This screen was (and maybe still is? I’m not sure.) a requirement for certification on consoles going back to the Xbox 360, when wireless controllers became ubiquitous.
Having to press a single button at the start of a game is a pretty minor complaint.
Why can some games just pick that up in the main menu, but others can’t?
What if I have an Xbox controller plugged in and want to use my keyboard? A simple spacebar hit sets the default controller for fit this play session.
Personally, I think if I cant just use both at the same time it’s kind of shit. Only a handful of games actually work like that, and it’s insane. I shouldn’t have to go into the settings and switch control types. I should just be able to use them if they’re plugged in, like GTA or BG3.
Wouldn’t that be just as applicable from the interaction with the main menu? When the player selects a menu entry (eg Start, Load, Options), that tells the game what you’re using.
Plenty of games are able to determine what you’re using without having such a screen. The “press any key to continue” screen has been a thing my entire life (born in 85), and it has never been necessary for anything other than simulating the “insert coin” screen for arcade games.
BG3 can use both at the same time, and yet it still has two of these screens. If you’re playing with a controller, it will say press any key then you press a button and it changes to “press A to continue” before you actually get to the main menu.
And it’s even dumber because you can see the game detects your controller before the first logo screen ends when the cursor is auto hidden.