Because Wii owners are convinced it isn't important.
I am probably not alone in saying, I don't care if the characters are all
stick figures, and the environments are all grey-scale - as long as it is
fun. That is not to say graphics are entirely unimportant, as they do need
to match the game itself. Wind Waker in Twilight Princess graphics would
have been okay, but Twilight Princess in Wind Waker graphics would not.
All that aside, Nintendo's goal is not a Multi-Media Home Entertainment
Center. It is a Video Game System.
While you are waiting for Metroid, I recommend Resident Evil 4: Wii
Edition. Even if you have played the 'Cube or PS2 version, it is still
worth it.
No need for high-def when you're working with 8 year old technology.
Because HD would have made the console more expensive to manufacture and
thus more expensive at retail.
Because only about 10% of households in the US have HDTV sets. The rest
of the world is similarly slow in adopting HDTV.
--
--Rat
\m/ (--) \m/
That and five bucks will get you a small coffee at Starbucks.
I think it is probably higher than 10% these days. If it is around 10% why not
at least give those who have it the option of playing in high def. I know huge
amount of high def tvs are being sold these days. Its rather hard to find
anything but high def tvs in retail anymore.
Nit-pick: SDTV is an 80 year old technology.
:)
> Because only about 10% of households in the US have HDTV sets. The
> rest of the world is similarly slow in adopting HDTV.
But once you've seen/owned it there is no going back & SDTV resolution will
never satisfy you again.
Engadget says 28% but I figure Engadget by its nature has a technically
skewed sample. The CEA says 30% but the CEA's member companies have a
vested interested in HDTV adoption. I'd believe 20% give or take 5%.
> not
> at least give those who have it the option of playing in high def.
Cost.
> I know huge
> amount of high def tvs are being sold these days. Its rather hard to find
> anything but high def tvs in retail anymore.
That's because analog broadcast in the US will be retired in 2 years.
Most people don't have high def TV sets, and Nintendo was trying to
make things as inexpensive as possible, while allowing for the new
controller. This is why you have the Gamecube 1.5 in the form of the
Wii.
Still, it makes for a good SECOND game system for videogamers to
have. Wii bowling and the other sports titles are good for non-gamers
and group gaming.
- Rich
YMMV on that one. Some have returned their HDTV sets because SDTV looks
terrible on HDTV sets. Only about half of those in the US with HDTV
sets get HD programming. Others simply don't like the black bars that
1.33:1 video requires on 1.78:1 screens. Not all HD programming is
1.78:1. Much of it is still 1.33:1, mirroring the SD broadcasts.
Personally? I call BS. SD resolution is plenty satisfying to me
because resolution is of precisely zero relevance to whether or not a
game is fun to play.
> Personally? I call BS. SD resolution is plenty satisfying to me
> because resolution is of precisely zero relevance to whether or not a
> game is fun to play.
Perhaps but it's possible to have both a fun game & HDTV and the two
together are better than one by itself. Fortunately HDTV will be the new
standard soon enough and no one can stop it.
Actually it's grown a bit, NPD shows it's more like 17-20% of US
households, it's a hard number to nail down because NPD just tracks
retail sales without demographic data beyond the typical information
the retailer gathers and there's a percentage of people who own HDTV's
who own more than one.
Still if you think about it, that number makes a lot of sense for
Nintendo doing what they did... It also explains why the PS3 isn't
selling, since the one feature that sets it aparent (Blu-Ray) is does
nothing for about 80% of US households. If you're still scratching
your head wondering why it's not selling, well that's why... It is a
much different scenario than DVD was with the PS2 at this point in its
life cycle, because every US household with a color television could
benefit from DVD.
Knowing this, why do you think Sony would have proceeded forward with
PS3? The answer is they were counting on that 80% shrinking to about
70% pretty quick (a realistic external goal that will happen possibly
by this Holiday season). and then they were planning on MANIPULATING
the a good chuck of the other 70% into buying into Blu-Ray before they
could ever really benefit from its use as a movie media.
Yeah I agree.
Who wants fun games in hi def, digital sound and online gameplay with
millions of people around the world?
pfft.. that is so over rated. Soemone hand me that Wiimote so I can play
some lego sports with no limbs.
I've been playing Wii sports since buying the system and it is fun....for a
while(single player). Probably will have more fun when my kids come next week.
The control doesn't seem very precise....at all.
Why would it have to retail for a higher price? Every Wii is already
being sold at a high profit, so why couldn't Nintendo simply include
the HD ability and then just take less of a profit for each one sold?
> Yeah I agree.
> Who wants fun games in hi def, digital sound and online gameplay with
> millions of people around the world?
> pfft.. that is so over rated. Soemone hand me that Wiimote so I can play
> some lego sports with no limbs.
Hey, give them credit for managing to sucker a heck of a lot of people into
buying Gamecube 1.5. I noticed Mario Party 8 got a rating of 0.5 on Reviews
on the Run the other day, nice they have fun games despite their lack of
graphical prowess :P (oh wait, 0.5 is bad isn't it, darn!)
And I can speak from firsthand experience as I own a Wii which is rarely
used since Zelda was finished. At least it's good for watching Youtube on a
screen bigger than my monitor. *shrug*
IMO it isn't bad with Wii Tennis or Wii Bowling but I find Wii Boxing to
be difficult to play because the controls aren't as tight as I'm
expecting. I suck at baseball in general and that translates pretty
well to Wii Baseball so I'll refrain from comment aside from that. :)
Because HD isn't just a matter of having appropriate video pinouts. The
GPU has to be able to drive a display at 1280x720p or at 1920x1080i.
That means a faster, more power-hungry GPU to render games at the same
frame rates as it would at 720x480i. More memory for the frame buffer.
A bigger, beefier power supply and more heat dissipation, and possibly a
larger case for airflow around that GPU. All these add to the cost. I
conservatively say $50-$75 per unit based on a quick survey of current
model low- to mid-range video cards from ATi and nVidia at Newegg.com.
WiiSports is a lot of fun, the first few months you own it anyway...
It's a shame they haven't brought out any other games like that...
Carnival Games looks promising, but I would expect these simple games
should cost more like $20 not $49.
Ninty is certainly more successful at it than Sony.
They must be doing *something* right over there.
:)
> on the Run the other day, nice they have fun games despite their lack of
> graphical prowess :P (oh wait, 0.5 is bad isn't it, darn!)
Bah. It pissed me off when Gamespot re-reviewed Ocarina of Time (VC
version) and dinged it for graphics -- as if it looked any different
from the N64 cartridge (it didn't).
As for Mario Party 8? I go back to the hockey game review that was
summed up with the statement, "we'll write a new review when
${PUBLISHER} releases a new game". :)
FWIW, Gamespot gave Paper Mario a 9.0 and Resident Evil 4 a 9.1. Those
are pretty fine scores, by the way.
I can't really agree with that. I've played games -- the same games --
on both SD sets and HD sets and barring design flaws there really isn't
any difference for me.
> Fortunately HDTV will be the new
> standard soon enough and no one can stop it.
Not technically true. Analog broadcast is going away to be replaced
with digital broadcast, but digital does not mean high definition. Much
of the ATSC broadcast content will continue to be 480i or 576i --
standard definition -- for many years.
> I can't really agree with that. I've played games -- the same games --
> on both SD sets and HD sets and barring design flaws there really isn't
> any difference for me.
wow, your eyes must be REALLY bad then. There's a night & day difference
between SD & HD. For example the latest Harry Potter game, very poor on SD
Wii but razor sharp on HD 360.
> FWIW, Gamespot gave Paper Mario a 9.0 and Resident Evil 4 a 9.1.
> Those are pretty fine scores, by the way.
Yes...too bad Resident Evil 4 has been done on two different last gen
systems years ago otherwise it might have been attractive to frequent
gamers. I played Paper Mario & was unimpressed, it looked like something
that could have been easily done on a last gen system. They went a further
step & ruined it with tons of tedious text.
They like making money and converting it to sweet, sweet yen!
--
All Purpose Culture Randomness
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/apcr/index.html
The GC is supposely more powerful than the Wii, which was practically
equal with the Xbox in terms of power and that system pulled off a few
720p games. So why couldn't the Wii pull it off? Or is Nintendo lying
to us and over-exaggerateing the power of the Wii, thus selling an
even more underpowered system for an even greater profit?
I'd hate to think I paid $250 for a Gamecube 0.75.
I guess you missed where I said that resolution has no bearing on how
much fun a game is to play. Games certainly *look* better on HD screens
than on SD screens... assuming the games in question actually have HD
resolution modes, otherwise they can look like ass. But, like I said,
looking better does not make a game more (or less) fun to play, barring
design flaws (I'm thinking specifically of Dead Rising's nigh-unreadable
text on SDTVs).
And for the record: my corrected vision is better than 20/20. :)
Whoever told you that got it backwards (or was yanking your chain). The
hardware is very similar: Wii's "Broadway" PowerPC-based CPU is a
faster, lower-power version of GC's "Gecko" PowerPC-based CPU (~730MHz
vs. 485MHz). The GPU is likewise beefier, sporting an ATi "Hollywood"
GPU, essentially a faster, lower-power version of GC's "Flipper" GPU.
Many have -- IMO legitimately -- called Wii "GameCube 1.5".
> equal with the Xbox in terms of power and that system pulled off a few
Also not accurate. The Cube has a more powerful CPU than Xbox's Celeron
chip but Xbox has a beefier GPU than the Cube and more, faster memory
available for the frame buffer and textures.
> 720p games. So why couldn't the Wii pull it off? Or is Nintendo lying
> to us and over-exaggerateing the power of the Wii, thus selling an
> even more underpowered system for an even greater profit?
Nintendo isn't pushing Wii as any kind of powerhouse. Quite the
contrary; Ninty is leaving that posturing to Sony and Microsoft.
> I'd hate to think I paid $250 for a Gamecube 0.75.
You didn't. What you did get is a faster, more powerful, more
energy-efficient GameCube with a fun, innovative (or gimmicky, depending
on who you ask) control system.
> I guess you missed where I said that resolution has no bearing on how
> much fun a game is to play. Games certainly *look* better on HD
> screens than on SD screens... assuming the games in question actually
> have HD resolution modes, otherwise they can look like ass. But, like
> I said, looking better does not make a game more (or less) fun to
> play, barring design flaws (I'm thinking specifically of Dead Rising's
> nigh-unreadable text on SDTVs).
>
> And for the record: my corrected vision is better than 20/20. :)
Yes but you disagreed when I claimed that having HD in combination with a
good game was better than one by itself earlier in the conversation.
As for Dead Rising having unreadable text on SDTV I think they basically
just don't care very much about the SDTV customer, otherwise they would
have dealt with such an obvious problem. A lot more gamers are picking up
HDTV's to go along with their HD consoles and HDTV's have dropped a lot in
price in the last year.
No, I didn't. I disagreed with the premise that HD games are more fun
than SD games.
> As for Dead Rising having unreadable text on SDTV I think they basically
> just don't care very much about the SDTV customer, otherwise they would
> have dealt with such an obvious problem. A lot more gamers are picking up
> HDTV's to go along with their HD consoles and HDTV's have dropped a lot in
> price in the last year.
I think it is more that Capcom didn't expect it to be a problem or
source of complaints. Capcom did take those complaints seriously enough
to include larger fonts for SD sets in later games like Lost Planet.
Perhaps ironically, it is Xbox360 that is driving HDTV sales right now,
not HDTV.
Actually, I'm an early adopter of HD. I've had a 32" Aquos HD set for
going on 3 years, now.
No one told me that, I simply goofed and wrote it backwards. Yes, I
meant to say the GC is supposedly *less* powerful than the Wii which
in turn was virtually equal to the Xbox.
That same Xbox that could pull of a few 720p games. If Nintendo is to
be believed that the Wii is 1.5X more powerful than the GC, there is
no reason the Wii can't display 720p. Especially when you're looking
at low poly count games like Wii Sports and such. What is holding
Nintendo back to allow those games to be displayed in 720p?
Nothing as far as I'm concerned. Unless the Wii is actually less
powerful than they claim.
A relatively meagre 3MB of texture and framebuffer memory.
Jeeze, I had no idea. Isn't that basically what the GC had? Nintendo
certainly took me to the cleaners then. $250 for a Gamecube and a $50
controller.
*biting tongue hard*
F#CK IT!
I've been sayinf it all along.
The laughable part is Nintendo playing the old we can't makem fast enough.
*rolls-eyes*
Yeah they can't make hardware from 5 years ago fast enough? psst. I have
this bridge I'm looking to move cheap.
When it drops to under $100 I will probably pick one up to play Mario
Sunshine 2 and possibly Mario Galaxy (depending on rating).
No, that's exactly what GC has.
> certainly took me to the cleaners then. $250 for a Gamecube and a $50
> controller.
Caveat emptor.
Me? I don't buy consoles for the specs. I buy them for the games.
Mario Sunshine 2? Do you mean Strikers?
Less than that
Ironically enough, the Wii is the system with the worse library so
far. Anyone buying the Wii "for the games" made the wrong choice so
far. Zelda was better on the GC and SPM, while ok, wasn't nothing
great. Everything else on the system is a rental.
Thankfully Galaxy and MP3 are due out soon.
Entirely agreed. Twilight Princess was the best game I have ever played (I
never played Majora's and Ocarina) but I hated the controls but Super Paper
Mario was good at best.