Rumor: Wii in HD
You had had the time to wait online, drop a few Benjamins, and settle in with your respective next-gen gaming system, whether it be a Wii, PS3, or 360, but you just had to know that eventually your system would be out-of-date. Unlike previous generations (PSOne, PS2, Xbox, Game Cube, etc) these machines can be upgraded with new firmware and added capabilities over the internet, and at some point in time the hardware receives upgrades. Given the Blu-ray drive in the PS3, I expect that we won’t see many changes/additions over its life-cycle except for a larger hard drive and a decrease in size. The Xbox 360 may receive an internal hard drive and internal HD-DVD player to compete head-on with the PS3. What is in question is the Wii. Nintendo Of America president Reggie Fils-Aime dropped an interesting quote in a USA Today article:
“Tough choices about not including a DVD player at the start, tough choices about not including high-definition capability at the start. That’s because we wanted a mass-market price, and we believe the market will validate those decisions come launch day on this Sunday,” Fils-Aime said.
The key phrase here is “at the start.” Wiis currently cannot play DVD movies, but Nintendo has already confirmed that a new model will be able to in the latter half of 2007 (in Japan at least)—not that big of a deal considering most people have DVD players (originally thanks to the PS2 as well as the sub-$50 prices. I believe there will be a major upgrade of the Wii to a next-gen HD format as well as a HD firmware update of 720p/1080i/1080p support once the format war becomes more clear. Do not confuse this with an official announcement from Nintendo, just my speculation. Even though the company is looking to bring on the “casual gamer,” it just so happens that this person is likely to have an HDTV within the next two years and Nintendo will be the only one on the market without a pretty looking picture.
Read [GameInformer]
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This rumor was around weeks ago, and was shot down by nintendo…
on January 2, 2007 at 06:13 PM - LINKThis is another hoo-haw article from, Adam Berger. Posing as a legitimate reporter, this pre-pubescent moron frames asinine speculations as news. Whenever I see anything written by Adam Berger, I know what quality to expect. Adam, your reputation as an idiot poser is growing, and I’m calling you on it. Pwned!
on January 2, 2007 at 06:46 PM - LINKits blatanly not true. Nintendo have gone on record for saying so many times “with this console we have gone for gameplay not graphics” - if they upgraded to 720 they would be going back on their mantra…
on January 2, 2007 at 11:26 PM - LINKits wishful thinking. i wish the wii had better graphics too, but its dosent. accept it
Apple has gone on record saying they are going to focus the iPod on music. And would you look at that… they now offer video support and sell TV shows, Music Videos, and Movies.
Companies contradict themselves when they see an opportunity in a market. There is definately an opportunity in enhancing the graphics of the Wii. Maybe they’ll release an adaptor to keep console costs down, but either way, they’re bound to keep up with the times. HD is here to stay.
on January 3, 2007 at 12:20 AM - LINKThe limiting factor here is graphics hardware. It takes a *lot* of processing power to push HD.
A graphics card for a PC capable of pushing games at resolutions like HD can cost as much as the Wii itself.
The higher resolution graphics card processors cost much more.
Sony LOSES money on each PS3… High power is not cheap.
Nintendo will not go HD with this generation. It is too expensive.
They cannot *add* HD like an add-on. The graphics system is a core piece of the architecture of the console.
They Could make a whole new console that supports HD, but that will not be within 2 years.
And “at the start” does not refer to at the start of the production run of the console. It refers to “at the start” of the decision making process. They made the decision “at the start”.
There will not be a HD Wii. It cannot be “added in”, it is not like external storage or broadband adapters.
Additionally, game developers could not make successful games if they had to make two versions - one that pushed HD and one that was SD. They would simply dump the Wii development all together rather than increase development costs by doing both or reduce sales by doing only one.
Christ people, Wii Sports is fun as hell and has the most simplistic graphics out there. Take the boxing game for instance. It is way fun on the Wii. Sure, I can’t see the beads of sweat on my opponent or watch his skin ripple as I hit him - but none of that matters if the game is just not fun.
Graphics are only a small peice of the game. All of the best games in history are a little weak on graphics (for their time) and some of the games with the best graphics for their time are a little weak on gameplay.
Look at Doom 3. It had wonderful visuals but fairly standard and non-enticing gameplay that got old quickly. I played Doom 3 for about 4 or 5 hours of gameplay and have not opened it again. I have already put more than that amount of gameplay into Zelda on the Wii and it’s graphics are not near as stunningly beautiful as Doom 3. But the game [Zelda:Twilight Princess] is damn good!
I repeat: Wii will NOT have HD.
on January 3, 2007 at 02:17 AM - LINKunfortunately, this speculation is poorly founded. This quote is from months ago, has been dissected at length by folks reading too much into it, and any possibility of a HD-Wii upgrade debunked. By saying ‘at the start’ he meant ‘from the beginning,’ as in ‘we decided from the start not to include HD, DVD player, etc.’
on January 3, 2007 at 05:56 AM - LINKDoubt it. Do you really think that the wii would be able to output 1080p? I just don’t see it happening when the 360 and ps3 can barely do 1080p.
on January 3, 2007 at 05:57 AM - LINKInternal hardware and software are not capable of supporting HD PERIOD! Alienate the early buyers? Not a chance! Recode all the games for HD playback. Yeah right? Who writes this stuff?
on January 3, 2007 at 10:56 AM - LINKNintendo is earning money on Wii now.
Sony claims PS3 to be the best in the
long run, some say 10 years.
GC games can be played on Wii.
You can buy two Wiis for the price of
one PS3.
The Wiii (Version 3 GC?) will have HD.
Suppose the Wii Remote is kept as it
is to Wiii.
The big question is then - when will Wiii arrive? My expectation is when better than PS3 performance can be archieved at a price comparable with that of Wii today. Two years sounds about right.
on January 12, 2007 at 08:44 PM - LINKBy than it will be decided on:
* HD DVD or Blue Ray
* Cell or SMP (Wiii can go both ways from where it is)
Hey, Fellow Nintendophiles--keep an eye out for two things: Manga Fox games and Wii in HD...coming sooner han you think…
on January 23, 2007 at 02:25 AM - LINK