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Wii gamers yearning for something better than 480p may get their wishes

It’s no secret that the Wii isn’t a technical powerhouse, but even knowing that fact can’t help some to become used to the console’s decidedly less-than-sharp graphics, especially when the console is connected to a high-definition display.

Even if the Wii’s ATI-based graphics processing unit doesn’t feature the same roster of special effects that of the chips inside the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the console could still benefit from a resolution increase.

Could a new, upgraded Wii that outputs in high-definition be in the works? Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter thinks so.

"Consumers may hope for improved graphics, and my guess is that Nintendo will comply," said Pachter in an email to GamePro. "In two or three years, commodity prices for graphics processors and CPUs may decline to the point that a High Definition Wii could be introduced. If so, Nintendo will likely introduce one."

Nintendo is no stranger to releasing upgraded iterations of its consoles. The most recent example of this is the Nintendo DS, which saw an initial release form of a bulky, sturdy folding brick, and later reinvented into the DS Lite, a sleek, shiny iPod-like fun machine. Considering Nintendo’s great success with this strategy, it should not be surprising to learn that the games maker could be plotting a similar strategy for the Wii.

In a previous interview, Nintendo of America VP Perrin Kaplan was asked if a similar ‘hardware revision model’ would apply to the Wii, to which she replied succinctly, “Sure, absolutely. You'll see the ways in which we do that.”

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Even though....
By mdogs444 on 8/2/2007 9:48:07 AM , Rating: 5
Even IF they release and HD-Wii, which no doubt would be great this day in age, I see a potential flaw.

Wouldn't the game developers need to recode the games to have better graphics for use with an increased resolution?




RE: Even though....
By Marcus Yam on 8/2/2007 9:52:48 AM , Rating: 3
Maybe they'd be able to incorporate some sort of scaling chip to accommodate for different resolutions. Heck, PC GPUs are able to switch from low resolutions to high resolutions without all hell breaking loose.


RE: Even though....
By danz32 on 8/2/2007 11:17:56 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe they could make the user stick a cartridge in the front like the N64 :)


RE: Even though....
By deeznuts on 8/2/2007 12:38:37 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Maybe they'd be able to incorporate some sort of scaling chip to accommodate for different resolutions.
Pssssttt, you're TV probably already does this.

Crap in, Crap out. That's a saying in the A/V world regarding upscaling. IF you don't improve the source, don't expect much improvement regarding upscaling. You'll get some improvement, but not much, and as I said, most HDTV's already do this.


RE: Even though....
By jtesoro on 8/3/2007 1:05:11 AM , Rating: 3
While I generally agree on crap in crap out, I think one should seriously look at upscaling DVD players to improve quality.

For a long time I held off on buying an LCD TV because of the image quality using standard definition DVDs. When visiting stores looking at different models I kept saying to the salespeople that the pixellation on the LCD somehow made the experience worse than watching on a standard CRT TV. Only when I watched a DVD using an upscaling player did it become good enough for me that I took the plunge. So it should be considered over TV scaling.


RE: Even though....
By piroroadkill on 8/8/2007 11:12:32 AM , Rating: 2
You are TV does this?


RE: Even though....
By LordTerrin on 8/8/2007 12:32:36 PM , Rating: 2
piroroadkill, your my hero :)


RE: Even though....
By VIAN on 8/2/2007 10:05:45 AM , Rating: 2
no, the games would just be rendered at a higher resolution, which would look significantly better.


RE: Even though....
By Flunk on 8/2/2007 10:08:36 AM , Rating: 4
Maybe not, the textures would still be the same. Polygons would be sharper and maybe they could anti-alias everything but it wouldn't be a huge jump.


RE: Even though....
By OrSin on 8/2/07, Rating: 0
RE: Even though....
By omnicronx on 8/2/2007 11:07:12 AM , Rating: 5
but who is going to care? the xbox360/ps3 user who didn't want to buy it because it wasn't HD?
Nintendo has proven people care more about game play then about video quality. You have to give it to them though, Nintendo probably realized how many people don't have HDTV's right now, but in 2 years that number could double or even triple, especially with the US analogue TV shutoff. This being said eventually the majority of the public will demand HD content.

p.s never will there be an HD dvd or blueray player in the next refresh of the WII. the blue laser diode will cost half of what the machine costs in general, and nintendo is not going to go the route of microsoft and take a hit on console sales just to make it back in games/accessories.


RE: Even though....
By oTAL (blog) on 8/2/2007 11:39:11 AM , Rating: 2
The blue lase diodes will obviously cost a lot less in 2 years... That much should be obvious if you look at the DVD path.


RE: Even though....
By exdeath on 8/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Even though....
By Madzombie on 8/2/2007 1:26:26 PM , Rating: 3
It's not so much that the controller is a gimmick, it's that developers are using it as one. Wii sports has shown that the controller can be used for completely new styles of game that weren't possible on the older system. Twilight Princess has shown that simply tacking wii controls onto a Gamecube game is not innovating in the slightest. I completed TP on the Wii but when I went back to OoT I was glad that I could do the same basic sword moves as on the Wii just by pressing a button.


RE: Even though....
By exdeath on 8/2/2007 2:39:15 PM , Rating: 2
Good point, and that highlights my concerns with the Wii.

People are calling it innovative when Nintendo is doing the same thing Microsoft and Sony are doing. Microsoft and Sony rehash the same games with HD graphics. Nintendo is rehashing the same games with motion controls.

I definitely see the potential of the Wii controllers, but potential possibilities that have yet to be implemented in a serious game is not a free pass in innovation for Nintendo any more than HD graphics are free passes for Sony and Microsoft. Motion controls and HD graphics aren't going to add depth to games that don't have it.

Quite frankly, gaming sucks at the moment, period.

Time to dig out my SNES.


RE: Even though....
By rbuszka on 8/3/2007 12:49:07 PM , Rating: 1
The corporate entity is Nintendo, not 'Wii'.


RE: Even though....
By VIAN on 8/2/2007 11:47:48 AM , Rating: 2
I think you underestimate the significance of this move.

1. If you have a 1080p LCD display. You would be able to to play the game using native resolution, which will look a lot sharper. Even if you don't have a full HD LCD display, a higher resolution will get rid of artifacts that you see at such a low resolution of 480p, thus sharpening up the picture significantly.

2. It will not only get rid of aliasing on polygons, it will get rid of aliasing on the textures on the floor. Something that Zelda for the Wii has a lot of.

3. AA can do more for image quality than you think. It will make the games seem more life-like.

I would totally buy into this if Wii was my thing. In fact when I tried the Wii for the first time, and still I agree - it would kick ass if it was in HD. No, it won't look Next Gen, but it will look significantly cleaner.


RE: Even though....
By PrinceGaz on 8/3/2007 10:50:12 AM , Rating: 2
Textures can be upsampled and interpolated to a higher resolution; although this does introduce some bluriness, edges inside the texture with large contrast differences (those where the higher resolution is actually needed most) can be interpolated in a way that does not introduce additional bluriness by using algorithms such as 2xSaI and better versions.

Although upscaling the textures with a suitable algorithm is no substitute for having higher resolution textures to begin with, it is far better than nothing and can produce surprisingly good results.

The only problem would be implementing it. I suppose they could add something in whatever API the Wii uses to send graphics, and place additional code to upscale the textures whenever an SD game is being played on an HD console.

Whether it's really worthwhile releasing an HD Wii in thefirst place is another matter. They may as well just wait four or five years and release an all new console, which has backward compatibility for Wii games (possibly upscaling to HD). The Wii is doing fine without HD support and for the majority of people purchasing it, that is likely to remain the case for its whole lifetime.


RE: Even though....
By Spivonious on 8/2/2007 10:08:37 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, but the textures would still be designed for low-res. It would be like playing GLDoom back in the day.


RE: Even though....
By BMFPitt on 8/2/2007 11:09:04 AM , Rating: 2
I'm entertained by the number of people who talk about how the Wii is worthless without cutting edge graphics, yet play 20 year old game ports on XBL.