Topic: Does Wii quality matter?

bleh, I hate these sort of comments... especially more recently in relation to New SMB Wii looking "like a DS game"

If Nintendo released a new console and didn't do anything except make it output to 720p I would be very, very under-whelmed. Comparing hardware experience by monitor resolution is like comparing intelligence by hair colour. Resolution is important but its hardly as important it has been made out to be and even 480p can produce perfectly reasonable looking games.

For example: there wasn't a single time playing through New SMB Wii, prior to many of the "looks like a DS game" comments, that I thought I was being ripped off in the visuals compartment. The style was similar to the DS game of a similar name but I distinctly remember Mario on the DS version having a stupidly low poly count and nowhere near as many effects or as smooth animations. I agree that it wasn't pushing the Wii but I can't think of anything they could have added to New SMB Wii in terms of visuals that would have improved my experience. Even if it was in 1080p with high AA and lots of effects it wouldn't have improved my experience.

I do agree that there are some games that would look better at a higher resolution (Super Mario Galaxy for a start) but even then better specs in other areas would be money better spent. As a gamer I don't think resolution should even be brought up in a debate about quality because its not even slightly on my radar. To me it feels the same as when audiophiles turn their nose up at 256kbps mp3s. If you hand me the better quality one I'll take it but if you don't I probably won't enjoy it any less.

/rant

@skywake: I'll have to take a bit of offense from that statement, being one who rips all his CD's at 320kbps. If it's better, it's better! Especially now that I have REALLY good headphones, low bit rate actually DOES sound noticably worse. I can live with it if it's the only option for free music, but I would LOVE to have my recently downloaded Brawl soundtrack at the better rate!

I also don't think that resolution has no place in discussions like these. I have an HDTV. It's not the best one out there, but it's pretty nice. Even though I've lowered the problem drastically over the last year by changing the video settings, the Wii still doesn't look as good as it should on my TV. PS2 games upscaled on my BC PS3 have sharper, clearer pictures! With some TV's, this is really a non-issue. All Wii games look AWESOME on my friend's massive 1080p TV, and it's only hooked up via composite! But for those in my situation, HD support would be a godsend and is DEFINITELY worth attention.

I agree that like 320kbps/flac musics are technically better than mid-lower bitrates just like 1080p is obviously better than 480p. You really can't be sane and dispute that but I honestly think we are giving it far too much attention.

If the better quality content is available then I would definitely grab it but I am not going to complain if its only available at a lower quality and the content is the same. When playing Super Mario Galaxy the fuzzies around the edges of characters and objects was annoying but once I got into the game it didn't matter at all. A fact that is even more true with New Super Mario Bros where it didn't bother me even in the slightest for any period of time.

HD is nice and I fully expect the next Nintendo home console to feature it but I am not at all bothered that they didn't include it this time. More to the point, if ALL Nintendo do for their next console is make it "HD" by throwing in a slightly better GPU to cope with it and giving it HDMI out I am not at all interested. It really doesn't improve my overall enjoyment significantly enough for me to be bothered about it.