Oh, brother. Here we go again. Just over a year after Nintendo's own Reggie Fils-Aime
denied the existence of a forthcoming
Wii HD, the bigwig is having to make that very same denial again. Naturally, a few new rumors of an HD-enabled Wii have
surfaced since that fateful day in October of 2008, and with the
recent price drop, it made sense to think that the Big N might actually be looking ahead. Instead, it seems that it's perfectly content selling hundreds of thousands of consoles that want nothing to do with modern amenities like "HDMI," "1080i" and "things that the PS3 and Xbox 360
have offered since day one." The man's exact quote?
"I don't know how forcefully we can say there is no Wii HD."
And Reggie, we don't know how much more forcefully you can continue to break our hearts.
posted November 6th 2009 12:52PM
Maybe that's cause they're gonna call it "Wii ResolutionPlus" (now with 1:1 pixel mapping to your tv)
No, a Wii2.
WiiWii
This is the part where Wii sales absolutely plummet for the next xx months.
The novelty of the Wii, and its Wiimote has COMPLETELY worn off. Now it's just a last-gen gaming console with extremely limited capability (compared to the other, similarly priced consoles), shitty graphics, and shitty games.
I simply can't believe they're not planning on introducing a new console any time soon. WTF?
I don't like Reggie. Ever since he personally killed the only good looking game for the Wii from coming to America, I think he's a big tool. That game was Disaster: Day of Crisis. It's completely finished, has English audio tracks, and was released in the UK...but we can't have it because he decided "Americans wouldn't buy it". Nope, instead we get "My Big Fat Pony 13" and are supposed to eat that crap up. Screw you Reggie.
The Wii had potential to be a bad ass console in spite of its graphical limitations. Nintendo killed all opportunity of that happening.
@crawdad689
You clearly don't understand how console developers make their money
Or just WiiHD withouth the space. It'd be pronounced like weed. I bet One Love would be on board. Make a bong compatible with the Wiimote and get high with Wario and friends.
I don't think they would ever actually admit to one if it did exist. Losing sales as some people wait for the new model.
But it still wouldn't have any good games
I have a wii and an xbox360. The wii is great for when my little nieces come over and we can do sword fighting and cow racing. If you are active and standing while using it, you really don't mind the graphics.
The xbox is for games you play while sitting on the couch. Unfortunately for Nintendo, most games fall under that category and there's no point in buying the wii versions.
I don't get it; do people honestly expect him to say "Yes, we're making the WiiHD, so please stop buying the current Wii until it's released late next year????"
Come on people! If Wii sales keep slipping, Nintendo knows that it has to do something to get them back on track. With the PS3 and 360 rapidly closing in on the Wii's price point (i ignore the arcade 360, since it needs a hard drive at some point), simply expecting people to be impressed by the controls 3 years after release won't get you anywhere.
So it will be 4 NGCs taped together?
(I kid, I'm a PSWii owner)
lol, PSWii. Well done.
@Jordan: You could import it from the UK. You'd need to mod your console, though.
And if Wii sales keep slowing, they could always lower the price to $100.
@(Unverified) Nintendo Wii is just simple and I love it so much that I only need a Blu-ray Disc player alongside it. No Wii HD please.
And the Wii Remotes aren't crappy in my opinion, it's just Nintendo's way of making video gaming fun and half healthy.
Wii Rules! (Not flaming or disagreeing in your opinion, just saying because I do)
@Jordan If you want it, go get an imported British Wii and the British version of the game.
Maybe not a Wii HD but a Wii 3D ? That would be so cool.
That's a gigantic head!
call it "wii too"
Don't you mean "WiiD"?
This week: There is no Wii HD
A few months later: Say hello to the new Xii (or Wii plus, or Super Wii, or just call it the Money Printing Machine)
I wonder how would you pronounce Yii
Well I guess they cant add extra letter/s on the end, other wise it would sound funny
Wiid, Wiii, Wiixl. Wiihd, Wiisp, Wiitwo etc.
HDii?
hahah personally I like Super Wii
...yet.
I really wish they'd release an HD enabled Wii... The biggest problem I have though, is that I still wouldn't be able to transfer my save files over for my internet-enabled games... It's so annoying...
I wonder if he has hdtv at home lol.
Yes, he does. He uses Dolphin to take full advantage of it too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_%28emulator%29
would the goal for this to be a completely new platform, or to be able to upconvert existing wii titles and also handle new content?
I wouldn't call it "upconvert" basically you need to scale the GPU and CPU up so they can render at 720 or 1080. It shouldn't be hard depending on the architecture, but basically with 3D models you can scale them to any resolution you want, it's not like 2D games where you would need redrawn spritemaps.
On the PC for example you can change the game resolutions at will and in fact on the Wii Dolphin Emulator, you can set the resolution to 1080 and play Wii games in HD, the lower polygon count and texture quality is still there, but its a vast improvement for playing on an HDTV. I wouldn't be unviable to sell two consoles in that manor, certainly they would see a lot of new sales from current Wii owners
John, that will not work on Wii, since every Wii game contains its own version of Wii OS it runs on. Console can't add to or replace something in a disk-based Wii game - they are all self-contained.
Also, it make no sense to scale Wii games since most of them have low res textures. Models can be scaled, but not textures. (Low res textures is what help fast loading times.)
Well, what if they don't scale the old graphics, but instead force old games to run 4:3, while the new games get the full 1080p treatment? Would that work?
MS is wanting to partner with ATI again for the next console, and have backwards compatibility with existing 360 titles as a result. I think Nintendo should try to if at all possible. Then again, they already have compatibility with gamecube, how many generations can we expect them to maintain compatibility? If they made a new system Wii compatible, you think they would still bother with having the gamecube controller hardware in the case? Probably a waste of material and money by then.
Well, I suppose that in the console space, it is generally better to wait until a full generation is complete anyway. With handhelds, a new form factor and bigger screens make sense. Adding graphical horsepower would mean programming games differently and segmenting the market.
Since the beginning, they've said HD would be part of their next console when HDTV penetration has reached a more significant percentage. Wii 2 it is. Wii HD just doesn't seem to be in the cards. Really, Wii Motion Plus could be considered the mid-lifecycle upgrade anyway.
Do people actually believe him? Denial = confirmation.
Exactly, just like Sony did with the price drop. Telling you that they're coming out with a new system would only hurt their current sales, which are doing exceptionally well.
There are just a couple commas missing in his statement. I'm sure his quote was just taken out of context; that's all.
"I don't know how, forcefully, we can say there's no Wii HD."
All better.
Brilliance.
Someone who understands how to use commas! Hooray. =) And that is very clever.
Well played, sir. Hooray for grammar!
Ex.:
"let's eat, grandpa"
"let's eat grandpa"
Well, how about the obvious, which is that "I don't know how forcefully we can say there is no Wii HD" are weasel words at their finest. I didn't watch the video itself, maybe he said more than that, but just that phrase itself does not contain any denial of a Wii HD whatsoever.
I don't know, nor do I care, how forcefully he doesn't know how to say that there is no Wii HD. The bottom line is, if he didn't come out and say "There is no Wii HD" with his next breath, the whole "denial" is meaningless. I wasn't planning to buy a Wii, but if I were, and I heard that sentence come outta the mouth of someone with clout at Nintendo, I would absolutely hold off on purchasing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words
nintendo is going to put themselves out of the console industry for good! it will be all their fault! they have sites like this and gizmodo and several hundred more to go to and look and read, you can see what the masses want, research and develop. isn't that how it's supposed to work?
Yeah, Nintendo's going to put themselves out of the console business even though they have sold almost more Wiis than 360s and PS3s combined. Let's not even get into the 115 million Nintendo DS sold worldwide.
They are fine, and are smart to wait it out for a new Nintendo console. Next year's lineup is much stronger and as such there's no reason for a new system at this time.
Oh and another thing....
Wii has sold more than the 360 and PS3 combined even though the latter two have "had HDMI and 1080i from day one".....
You know what the Wii has had from day one?
A PROFIT.
black wii will hit US within the next week or 2 probably. Then anyone who ever considered a wii will finally give in.
and THEN we can talk about wii upgrades.
Break our hearts? Hardly. Maybe if my Wii was used for anything but bowling. The games largely suck for Wii and the novelty of the control scheme wears out pretty quick IMO.
The games don't largely suck to everyone. They probably do to you because you own a 360/PS3 as well. So it makes no sense for you to play Madden or Call of Duty on the Wii when you have the HD glory alternative. For those that ONLY have the Wii - which is a lot of people. They have no issue playing 480p (let's be real 480i) versions of today's games.
Considering so many older people haven't played a game since Pong, the graphics on the Wii are pretty mind-blowing.
now we are sure, forecefully, it's not going to be called wii HD. maybe Wii True HD?
There's no PS3 Slim either.
That type of response usually comes under a standard "we do not comment on rumours and specualtion" retort. A vocalised "NO" is a different beast. I might say 'yeah right' if it came from a European mouthpiece, but from Reggie it probably means something.
The "speculation and rumors" line is always from PR types in mass emails. It's never quoted from the mouths of the execs.