Leading Nintendo figures have sent out mixed messages concerning the company's high definition strategy.

During the firm's recent financial results briefing, Genyo Takeda, general manager of Nintendo’s Integrated R&D Division, said that the industry’s shift to high definition “appears a natural flow", although he stopped short of confirming HD support for future products.

“Since our division has been reviewing and developing a number of hardware, we are looking into many different things, including HD and SD… However, we have not come to the stage where we can announce which is the most appropriate means. Since an increasing number of the TV sets at home around the world are becoming HD today, it will be natural for a machine to be able to generate graphics that people will be accustomed to see on HD televisions. Since the ordinary TV programmes are now shifting to HD, moving to HD appears to me a natural flow.

“I believe that we should take the most appropriate balance," he added. "We are not too much concerned about if the technology itself is the state-of-the-art or rather old-fashioned. If we can find out the most appropriate medium, between SD and HD, and flexibly move around them depending on the game's contents, it will be good, I think.”

Famed Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto said: “As long as my way of making games are concerned, all I am concerned about technologies is, we probably cannot swim against the tide. The customers' tastes will become more and more refined. Even today, many customers who have seen HD once say they cannot go back to SD.

He later added: “Regarding the question of SD or HD, it must depend on each software. For example, we have to ask ourselves if HD is really necessary to develop Wii Fit. Won't HD be better for the games like Pikmin? The developers should choose the most appropriate graphical format depending on the software they make. To Nintendo, our theme is how we can prepare the SDK library to cater to the needs of the developers, with which the developers can more easily develop their games.”

However, speaking in an interview with Gametrailers, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime strongly denied that a Wii HD is in the works. “I don't know how forcefully we can say that there is no Wii HD,” he said, before being asked if one would ever be released. “No,” he responded.