Fallout 3 - The Console Masses @ Next Gen

Fallout 3 and the Console Masses is an article at Next Gen that follows on from a podcast and discusses storytelling in F3 and the idea that the game is "dumbed down" for the masses:

Is there any truth to some peoples' opinion--and this is a lot of the hardcore Fallout fans that are saying this--that games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 that are targeted towards a very large console audience have been, put most cynically, "dumbed down," or more positively, "made more accessible"? Is there any truth to that? Have you made concessions for the mass market?

It's funny. I look at Fallout when I play it every day, and I sometimes think that there's a lot of old-school hardcore PC stuff in there too, and part of me thinks, "God, is this too inaccessible for console players?" There's a lot of dialogue to read, a lot of just hacking computers and looking through things like "VAT." I don't know. Sometimes I think it's just the opposite. So I don't feel like we're dumbing down the franchise.

...I think we're starting to find that there is a market for [hardcore "PC RPGs" on consoles]. People like myself and some people that work here actually grew up as hardcore PC guys, and now we're older, we have kids, we don't have that much time, so we've transitioned. We're console players now.

But we still have those PC game sensibilities. Those are the games we like. So I think BioShock has a little bit of that too. You can definitely feel the old System Shock roots in that game. So hopefully there's a trend there.