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Nintendo: No “Significant Reason” To Make Wii HD
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says that the company has found no “significant reason” to release an HD-compatible Wii.
“… As far as the Wii is concerned, we have not found a significant reason to make it HD-compatible at this time,” the executive told VentureBeat. “What is the significant meaning to the users? I don’t think we should do it unless we find that reason."
However, if and when the company does release new hardware, Iwata said it would “naturally” be HD-compatible.
“If we have an opportunity to make a new console, it will probably support HD because it is now common throughout the world.”
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said recently that he expects the long-rumoured high definition Wii to release in 2010.
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Sony and Microsoft are not likely to be putting out another console for quite some time. Nintendo should see this as an opportunity to catch up in the graphics department by releasing a console graphically on par with the 360 and the PS3 and pricing it at $250 upon release. They should be able to do that since the technology is only getting cheaper, and the core 360 is at $200 now I believe.
By the time Nintendo finishes the Wii HD, they should even be able to throw in a hard drive with a pretty good storage capacity, as well as a decent online network. At least let me register my own fucking account! Friend codes...how absurd.
"Nintendo should see this as an opportunity to catch up in the graphics department by releasing a console graphically on par with the 360 and the PS3 .............they should even be able to throw in a hard drive with a pretty good storage capacity, as well as a decent online network"
And that would make the Wii................a 360/PS3? What's the point? To make your console the same as the other 2 out there and compete for the same customer attention, of which the other 2 have a substantial headstart in?
I very much think Nintendo will NOT make any significant changes that would move the Wii hardware away from it's current, and VERY lucrative, audience. Does anyone seriously think an HD Wii with the additions you just mentionned, will make people abandon their 360/PS3s in favour of a new-style Wii, and start buying Wii games at a similar rate theyr were buying 360/PS3 games? A lot of 360/PS3 owners already also own a WIi, do you think they would pay to upgrade that? Personally, i doubt an upgraded Wii would register enough sales to offset the costs of developing and producing the new version.
But again, judging from consumer response to the Wii... Why bother?
If the HD Twins were mopping the floor with the Wii due to their hardware advantages, what you say would make a lot of sense. But as it stands...
So long as most people own *only* SDTVs, nintendo will be right, from a business perspective, to not bother. Making hi definition games requires an significantly greater amount of resoruces than standard def games. Wii games are far cheaper for developers to make than sufficient 360/ps3 games to show off on TVs that only a fraction of consumers actually own. The result is that the Wii is cheaper, which drove sales to be stronger, and the cost/benefit ratio for developers is much more tenable, so devs are more inclined to support the product.
Of course, once HDTV becomes the standard across most consumers, Nintendo will surely hop on board. But for now, Nintendo's Wii is doing spectacularly because of wisely not targeting the HD market.
That said, I do own an HDTV and games on it are oh so pretty! It would be nice to see an HD Zelda...but I am not so sure how more cartoonish games like Mario would actually benefit from the res upgrade, other than less jaggies.
Question:
When you guys complain about the Wii looking like crap on HD sets, is that at all aspect ratios or just the default? A Lot of people complain but I never understand why. Because Standard Definition television looks fine when the Aspect ratio is set to 4:3 with the black bars on the sides.
I have never tried hooking a Wii to an HD set as I have neither. Please explain.
There are just jaggies everywhere. The more detailed games look really messy. It's the same the way freeview or any standard def stuff looks a bit pants through a HDTV. My plasma is only 720p so it's nearer the resolution of standard def TV so doesn't look too bad but on my brothers 1080p Sony LCD, standard def Sky looks a bit like YouTube footage.
I have a 37" inch HD set and, with little adjustments and a few tweaks to the settings, the WIi looks great. I think a lot of people might not be hooking the Wii up to their HDTV with component cables but with composite - that most certainly is not a good look.
I think nintendo is looking at the cost for HD and I think they want to save more money.
What incredible double-talk.
We're nor making an HD console, but if we did make a console, it would be HD. They're obviously releasing an HD machine to coincide with Sony & Microsoft's motion technology. The only people they're fooling is their target audience.
Sony & Microsoft's motion tech is in no way a threat to the Wii. Nintendo's next machine will surely be HD. But if you're expecting a new system anytime before 2012 at the earliest I think you're woefully mistaken.
They're not going to make the wii HD, but when they release their next console, it will be HD. What's so hard to understand?
I understand. Nintendo isn't claiming to not make the Wii HD. They're stating to not make the Wii HD at this time.
They state that new hardware - (vague answer) - will be HD. The DS, DS-lite, & DSi are all technically different pieces of " hardware;" even though they are the same system. It also follows Nintendo's recent handling of a console "life-cycle."
Looking at the DSi, it's processor is twice as powerful; as technology had become cheaper. Double the Wii graphics chip, & they will be able to redraw every game in HD.
It would be nice if they did release one (Wii) that could do HD as I find it hard even to play PS2 games on my PS3. Nintendo will release a Hi-def machine as soon as Microsoft and Sony bring out their new controllers and decent games for the new motion controllers.
Same here. I made sure I bought a 60gig PS3 because I missed out on a lot of PS2 games last gen when my PS2 died and couldn't be bothered to replace it. Now I buy them and can't bring myself to play them cause unfortunately they just look so bad on my TV. But then BC XBox games, such as Halo 2, look amazing upscaled. Ninja Gaiden Black in particular looks as good as many 360 games.
HD-compatible is not the same thing as HD Ready. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_ready for a description of the HD Ready spec. "The term HD compatible is also being used in Europe to indicate that a display device has HDMI capability but with lower than HD ready resolution."
The Wii is already HD-compatible, in that you can connect it to an HDTV. A truly HD Wii would support 720P at a minimum; and that's likely all Nintendo will do, since they're the kings of cost-cutting in order to sell their consoles at a profit from the start.
Its not that it would save them money, it is that 720p is the most common HD television set.
I know it sounds shallow but the Wii being HD incompatible is one of the reasons I've chosen not to buy one. I had one look at some of the games on my older consoles when I bought my current HDTV and packed them away before the day was out. Some of them looked so bad they were literally unplayable (PS1 Tomb Raider being a good example).
The funny thing is I was just playing the original Saturn version of Tomb Raider on a 50" HDTV last week via s-video. Looked the same as when I last played it on a 32" CRT SDTV via s-video about five years ago [shrug]
A Wii supporting HD (with upscaled graphics) would be very nice. Include normal mapping and they might be able to compete with the 360 and PS3 a lot better.
He has obviously never hooked his Wii up to a HD set.
Yeah. Obviously.
The point that everyone is missing is it's not just the OUTPUT that needs updating the Wii's graphical capabilities are where the problem is. The Xbox 1 as powerful as it was (comparable to the Wii's capabilities in almost every category) rarely rendered a game in 720p and in the rarest of cases 1080p. Slapping an HDMI port on the Wii and having your HDTV upscale 480p games to 1080p won't be the solution. The Wii would have to RENDER its games in 720p (the 360 and PS3 almost never render their games in 1080p they just SUPPORT 1080p) not just support it.
There's a huge difference between supporting a resolution and rendering a game at that resolution. Rendering a 720p game at 60fps takes a ton of power (even 360/PS3 devs brag about having a game run at 60fps at 720p as did Turn 10 when they announced forza 3) expecting the Wii to do 720p and especially 1080p with just an HDMI output update is absurd. I think people aren't understanding just how taxing it is on hardware to render a game at 720p. MS and Sony talk about 1080p, but that's just supporting it. Only a handful of games on either HD system run at a native 1080p. All 360 games state, "1080p" on the back that just means that res is supported. Big games like Metal Gear (I believe), Halo, Gears etc. all run at 720p, 30FPS. Some big games to render at 720p, 60fps (Call of Duty being one of the most notable, that's why it looks so silky smooth) but none do at 1080p, 60fps. That's next gen.