Not giving the Wii ANY HD capability at all was incredibly short sighted (especially when you consider even the PS2 has some very limited HD ability), yeah alot of people like the Wii, but I think almost all of them would like it better if there was an HD version.
The only other thing that I really think Nintendo messed up was their terrible online gaming system.
Yea because Mario and Yoshi need to be HD, thats like saying I bought my 1080p TV and HD PVR to watch cartoons in HD. Why can't people just take the Wii for what it it. It has never been advertised as an amazing graphics machine, it plays games that everyone loves and that your mom loves too.
If you gonna QQ about graphics open your wallet and buy a Xbox or PS3.
@Work Play Party Two things, I'm not saying they needed to even nessicarily make the system any more powerful (though it would have been nice) but they should have at least allowed the option of outputting at higher resolutions, and let the developers decide.
Most PS3/X360 games don't run at 1080p (most don't even run at 720p if I recall) but it's nice to have the option, then you get simple games like Wipeout HD (ps3) which run 1080p60 and look effing amazing. If a developer has the ability to code a game to run on Wii hardware and output it at 720p, why not let em do it? (it would also be really nice to at least have the menus in higher resolution, blurry menus are no fun)
2nd, CARTOONS LOOK AMAZING IN HD... All the VERY best reference quality blu-ray are animated movies. Anime looks great too. Believe it or not, HD is more than just more pixels, it's also a vastly improved color gamut. You don't need to make a game like Uncharted 2 to take advantage of HD.
@Amnesia87 I doubt you would being saying it would be nice to give to developers the option to output at whatever resolution they wanted if that bumped the price of the console up by $100-200 dollars.
Hardware upgrades don't come for free and the Wii would definitely need some to achieve this. Nintendo decided to go the affordable route with the Wii right out of the gates, unlike PS3 and 360 which started at very high price points. This in turn has made the Wii the best selling console of this generation.
With the sales numbers for the Wii being that high, that has to cover the general public which I doubt knows the difference between composite, component, HDMI, Bluetooth, 480i, 480p, 720p, 180i,1080p, yadayadayada.
FYI, all PS3 and X360 games are required to support at least 720p. The Wii supports 480i (which is what everyone on CRT TVs have been using since forever), with 480p known as "progressive scan". Then you have the 576 equivalent for the PAL Euro regions.
"Standard def" DVD's plat at 480p, with most HD players upscaling/downscaling/whatever.
There is no way the majority of the millions of Wii owners out there knows or even gives a rat's ass about all of the above I just described. All they care about is sticking in a game disc and swinging their Wii Remotes at each other at parties or family gatherings. That's what Nintendo was banking on, and they were right.
If Nintendo caved in to everyone's whining, and said "hey, now on HD!", you know what the Wii owners are gonna ask? They are going to ask, "What is that? Does this mean I can't swing my controller around anymore?"
@jastani First, you are WRONG about games having a standard resolution of 720p or higher.
Modern Warfare 2 runs at 600p, Halo 3 runs at 1152x640, etc etc etc.
From there the PS3 uses a software scaler, 360 uses a hardware scaler to get to whatever resolution you have it set to output.
And you are STILL missing my point.
Even if they didn't want to bump the hardware AT ALL, they still could have left the output resolutions unlocked, and allowed developers determine for themselves what resolution they wanted their games at.
Even PS2 was ABLE to output HD video, there were even a few 1080i games.
Not to mention Nintendo would be able to bump the specs up just a tiny tick, and give the thing 720p capabilities, and then they could market it as HD. You can claim what you want, but even the least tech savy of people now-a-days know that HD=better (even if it's not always exactly true)
What you really fail to realize though, is that the lack of HD support (and terrible online system), limited the number of hardcore gamers that were interested in the system, which in turn limited developer interest in the system.
This is demonstrated in the Wii's rather limited attach rate, and it's limited selection of third party games.
No one is making money on the Wii but Nintendo (which is why of the Wii's top 25 selling games, 17 are first party games.)
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Not giving the Wii ANY HD capability at all was incredibly short sighted (especially when you consider even the PS2 has some very limited HD ability), yeah alot of people like the Wii, but I think almost all of them would like it better if there was an HD version.
The only other thing that I really think Nintendo messed up was their terrible online gaming system.
@Amnesia87
Yea because Mario and Yoshi need to be HD, thats like saying I bought my 1080p TV and HD PVR to watch cartoons in HD. Why can't people just take the Wii for what it it. It has never been advertised as an amazing graphics machine, it plays games that everyone loves and that your mom loves too.
If you gonna QQ about graphics open your wallet and buy a Xbox or PS3.
@Work Play Party Two things, I'm not saying they needed to even nessicarily make the system any more powerful (though it would have been nice) but they should have at least allowed the option of outputting at higher resolutions, and let the developers decide.
Most PS3/X360 games don't run at 1080p (most don't even run at 720p if I recall) but it's nice to have the option, then you get simple games like Wipeout HD (ps3) which run 1080p60 and look effing amazing. If a developer has the ability to code a game to run on Wii hardware and output it at 720p, why not let em do it? (it would also be really nice to at least have the menus in higher resolution, blurry menus are no fun)
2nd, CARTOONS LOOK AMAZING IN HD... All the VERY best reference quality blu-ray are animated movies. Anime looks great too. Believe it or not, HD is more than just more pixels, it's also a vastly improved color gamut. You don't need to make a game like Uncharted 2 to take advantage of HD.
@Amnesia87
I doubt you would being saying it would be nice to give to developers the option to output at whatever resolution they wanted if that bumped the price of the console up by $100-200 dollars.
Hardware upgrades don't come for free and the Wii would definitely need some to achieve this. Nintendo decided to go the affordable route with the Wii right out of the gates, unlike PS3 and 360 which started at very high price points. This in turn has made the Wii the best selling console of this generation.
@Amnesia87
With the sales numbers for the Wii being that high, that has to cover the general public which I doubt knows the difference between composite, component, HDMI, Bluetooth, 480i, 480p, 720p, 180i,1080p, yadayadayada.
FYI, all PS3 and X360 games are required to support at least 720p. The Wii supports 480i (which is what everyone on CRT TVs have been using since forever), with 480p known as "progressive scan". Then you have the 576 equivalent for the PAL Euro regions.
"Standard def" DVD's plat at 480p, with most HD players upscaling/downscaling/whatever.
There is no way the majority of the millions of Wii owners out there knows or even gives a rat's ass about all of the above I just described. All they care about is sticking in a game disc and swinging their Wii Remotes at each other at parties or family gatherings. That's what Nintendo was banking on, and they were right.
If Nintendo caved in to everyone's whining, and said "hey, now on HD!", you know what the Wii owners are gonna ask? They are going to ask, "What is that? Does this mean I can't swing my controller around anymore?"
@jastani First, you are WRONG about games having a standard resolution of 720p or higher.
Modern Warfare 2 runs at 600p, Halo 3 runs at 1152x640, etc etc etc.
From there the PS3 uses a software scaler, 360 uses a hardware scaler to get to whatever resolution you have it set to output.
And you are STILL missing my point.
Even if they didn't want to bump the hardware AT ALL, they still could have left the output resolutions unlocked, and allowed developers determine for themselves what resolution they wanted their games at.
Even PS2 was ABLE to output HD video, there were even a few 1080i games.
Not to mention Nintendo would be able to bump the specs up just a tiny tick, and give the thing 720p capabilities, and then they could market it as HD. You can claim what you want, but even the least tech savy of people now-a-days know that HD=better (even if it's not always exactly true)
What you really fail to realize though, is that the lack of HD support (and terrible online system), limited the number of hardcore gamers that were interested in the system, which in turn limited developer interest in the system.
This is demonstrated in the Wii's rather limited attach rate, and it's limited selection of third party games.
No one is making money on the Wii but Nintendo (which is why of the Wii's top 25 selling games, 17 are first party games.)