And why should they be? Nintendo is still selling the Wii hand over fist and it has not reach the point of stagnation that would require a new console release.

The only people that want a Wii2 or WiiHD are those who want Nintendo to cater to the same group of gamers the 360 and PS3 cater to. The current audience of the Wii is perfectly happy with its current offerings.

What would be nice are some games that let players connect with friends via a social network like Facebook. Imagine playing a game like Farmville on the Wii or DS...

@Ephriam
That's just not true. Graphics are part of the whole gaming experience and if there wasn't anything to perceive, there wouldn't even be an experience to interact with. A Wii with full HD capabilities would make a lot of sense, the same way the 360 was later upgraded with HDMI. I can't even play on the Wii on my TV and buying an older TV doesn't make sense to me. Consumers have the right to play on the Wii in HD and be up to date.

@Christian,

"I can't even play on the Wii on my TV and buying an older TV doesn't make sense"

I honestly don't understand that argument. I play my Wii on my HD tv just fine. I even play my PS2 and Gamecube games just fine as well. I just don't understand the line of reasoning that goes into "Wii games look like crap on HD tvs"

"Graphics are part of the whole gaming experience and if there wasn't anything to perceive, there wouldn't even be an experience to interact with."

As for this, it is not the graphic processing power of the console that make a game look good. It is the art direction and the ability of the artists to design within the constraints of a system that makes the game look good. At least in my opinion.

I'm sure Nintendo is working on SOMETHING while Microsoft and Sony are working on their motion controllers. Analysts have so much faith that Natal and Arc will pose a threat to the Wii, that they completely forget that Nintendo is allowed to innovate with new ideas as well. Whether it's new peripherals/hardware or simply a focus on better Wii games, Nintendo appears to have something up their sleeve that gives them this much confidence in the Wii's ongoing success.

If the Wii was able to scare PS3 and XBox360 into believing that they need to extend their console lives by adding motion controls, then the Wii is doing a good job making a positive impact in the gaming industry.

@Ephraim, at least you state that it's your opinion that things like the ability to generate realistic shadows, textures, depth-of-field effects, etc. are irrelevant to how good a game looks. Obviously aret style and art direction are extremely important to how good a game looks, but I don't think anyone would say that Halo 3 doesn't look significantly better than Halo:CE, for example.

I don't know why Nintendo would even considering putting out a new console in the next two or three years, but resting on its laurels and taking its brand recognition for granted (and refusing to adopt new technologies) is what led to the enormous success of the PS1 and 2, and the relative lack of success for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube.

So nintendo are NOT even seriously considering a successor to the wii?
Well that statement is obviously BS, thus can we safely rule out anything Reggie said in that interview as a load of twaddle?

nintendo/sony/MS/nvidia/AMD/intel etc are constantly evaluating new hardware.

Hell just look at past statements "we have no plans to cut the price soon", fastforward a couple of months, pricecut :)

Most consumers don't care about HD. Mainstream consumers don't notice things like "realistic shadows" and "depth-of-field" (We're developers, so of course that's the first thing that comes to mind). Instead, they wonder if the game is fun or worthy of their time, or if it's something that they can play with other people.

Reggie is correct in that a Wii with HD graphics alone would be uninteresting. I am glad that they will take their time and make sure their next console is something truly innovative. Until then, I hope that they keep putting 100% support into the Wii for many years to come.

To ward off Natal and Arc, Nintendo simply has to keep making the best motion controlled games. That's all there is to it!

@Jonathan,

"I don't know why Nintendo would even considering putting out a new console in the next two or three years, but resting on its laurels and taking its brand recognition for granted (and refusing to adopt new technologies) is what led to the enormous success of the PS1 and 2, and the relative lack of success for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube."

On your last comment, if you're refering to the CD, I agree, but on the other hand, the N64 was technically better than the PS1 and the same can be said for the GameCube when compared to the PS2.

I recall that when the n64 came out, that the producers told me that it cost about a half a million to develop for, I also recall that the dev-kit was a SGI Indy with basically a N64 inside. This is a stark contrast to the PS-1 dev kit, which I recall hearing cost about 18k, but the producers were all working on PCs and could burn test CDs on the spot and try it out on their dev PS1s, where as the N64 required a special cartridge, which was shared.

Anyways, just rambling.

@Ephriam
My TV is my computor Monitor so I only use DVI and HDMI, so no the Wii can't run on my system and if it was running on it it would look terrible. If a game doesn't look "oky", it's not engaging. A video game or a platform that isn't engaging is a bad gaming platform.

The Wii is supposed to be cheap, so it should at least run on a PC monitor too, doesn't it? It cost a lot less to by a decent computer monitor than a decent HD TV.

as always, take whatever an executive says, and add the words, "that we are willing to disclose at this time" to the end of it.

It’s difficult to predict how the lack of HD will affect Nintendo over the course of the next few years. When the Wii and its HD competition first launched, the penetration of the HDTV market was less than 20 percent. While I have no hard data, I’m willing to bet that number has probably tripled over the last few years due to decreasing prices and cheaper brands being introduced. Back when the current crop of systems launched, HDTV’s were an expensive luxury and the popular flat screen models which now dominate the market were incredibly expensive. Both Microsoft and Sony touted the HD capabilities of their respective systems and Sony in particular urged the conversion for the sake of the Blueray format but at the time people just weren’t all that concerned with high definition.

Things are different now. HDTV’s can be purchased for under 300 dollars and many Blueray discs are now selling for under 10 bucks. People are beginning to gravitate towards HD with their television programming and sporting events so it is only a matter of time before consumers want a videogame console that can deliver HD visual fidelity, though I personally have no idea how that need will be met by a company as stubbornly backwards as Nintendo. I mean, we are talking about a console maker that still can’t offer a hard drive, optional or included, on a console whose features include an archive of downloadable classics. I play the Wii on a 52’ Sony Bravia and while the picture is passable when connected via the component cables it’s hardly optimal. As a point of fact, the better the TV, the worse the Wii looks on it.


@ Ephriam Knight

I agree the things you mention are crucial but there is still a technological reality that must be addressed. The Wii’s hardware has been a severe handicap from day one and the software has suffered for it. Some people might counter that the Wii’s own games offer unique experiences that cannot be replicated elsewhere but having played all three consoles extensively I would actually assert the PS3 and XB360 are, generally speaking, not only more powerful gaming machines but have offered up a much larger quantity of innovative software.

Actually, what impress me the most is that the Wii was the most successful console and yet... Nintendo isn't even able to satisfy everyone. So I'm asking, what are they doing with all that money?

@ Christian, If Nintendo tried to satisfy high-end consumer, their cash reserves would vanish. Better they make a game like New Super Mario Bros that sells 10 million+ units but probably has half the development costs of an average HD game.

I agree with Christian on graphics, and it's the main reason I don't own a Wii.
I have played the Wii, enjoyed it's games with friends who own one, but never felt the urge to buy one myself. Most people I know that own one use it as a second console, and prefer the higher end 360 or PS3 as the main console.

I agree with Ephraim, Art direction is much more important for me, than high end technology. Games like Okami on the PS2, Super Mario64 on the N64, Rez on the Dreamcast, Sonic on the MegaDrive, Donkey Kong Country on the SNes, Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar, Doom on a DOS PC or Missile Command on the VCS all had a unique artistic vision, that makes them still playable and visually enjoyable after all those years.

A game like Halo didn't had this artistic vision in my opinion, that's the reason why I love to play a round of Doom today, but it would never come to my mind to play another round of Halo again.

I think its disingenous to say that technical aspect of graphics don't matter or are relatively unimportant. By analogy: Obviously the story and the performances are the most important aspects of a movie, along with costumes, art direction and costume/set design, yet the technological advancements in cinema make all but a few movies (Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton) from before the advent of sound and whatnot unwatchable. Personally, I don't think games can achieve "art form" status until realism is easily attainable, since technological limitations of what can be done and what type of people can do it are in my mind what limits 90 percent of non-Nintendo games to adolescent male power fantasy type games.

Technological advancements in graphics rendering (jargon aside, I don't know much about the software and hardware of "particle effects, but I can tell the difference between a Dreamcast game and a 360 game) inarguably allow for greater artistic representation, visual creativity and innovation. If it wanted, Nintendo could duplicate a Mario game for PS3 or 360, but the reverse can't be said for Uncharted 2, Bioshock or Gears of War (yes its gray and brown but there was something to "destroyed beauty"). Also, assuming that Nintendo didn't squander the additional resources, imagine how detailed and beautiful the games it could make could be with additional processing power and the ability to output HD.

Of course both the technical and artistic aspects of graphics matter, how can that even be questioned?
And so does gameplay, marketing and everything that goes into the mix of successfully selling a game.

What matters is having the right edge at the right moment.

And, of course Nintendo is preparing another console to follow the Wii. They just can't announce it yet because (1) it's not ready and (2) it would damage sales of the current Wii. When will that come is a mystery to me, granted. But you can bet Nintendo's Wii and DS dollars aren't just sitting on a bank account. I used to think, like everyone else, that it would come in 2011 (based on increased R&D spendings post-Wii launch) but I'm not so sure anymore, it seems those investments went into iterating over the DS with the DSi and XL, and developing new high-quality games for the 2010 line-up : SMG2, a new Zelda, Metroid M, etc.

@ Christian If you don't have a REAL HDTV, your opinion means nothing. I have a 50 inch plasma. My Wii games look awesome. My PS3 games look WAY better, but no one seems to care, but me.

If I were Nintendo - I wouldn't make a WiiHd, either. Most people are idiots. Make money. Make love. - OK, that's the beer talking - sorry!!! :)

@ Jonathan Gilmore
"yet the technological advancements in cinema make all but a few movies (Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton) from before the advent of sound and whatnot unwatchable"

I know many silent movies. that aren't only watchable, but still great pieces of art. Movies like Nosferatu, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis or The Armored Cruiser Potemkin for example are widely considered as must see classics among filmfans all over the world. And even today, making a silent movie is not so unusual, directors like Guy Madin used this technique in the recent past as an artistic experiment and La Antena was 2007 a huge hit on several festivals all over the world.
I wish gamers would care about their heritage as much as filmlovers do.

It's funny how people feel Nintendo should cater for the experienced gamer for whom gaming is not only the primary entertainment form but the primary hobby. The simple fact is that if these gamers made Nintendo's business decisions they would be out of business by now. The Wii would have more processing power than the PS3 (just as the Gamecube had more than the PS2) and it would have flopped.

Graphics do add to the experience but for most normal human beings there are massively diminishing returns on improving graphics. Also, you cannot buy a non-HD TV so HD TV sales don't tell you much about demand for HD content. Most of the world doesn't care about HD that much. Nintendo's next console will naturally be HD because it will be cheaper and more people will be able to make use of it. However, for the vast majority of people that buy it will be happily unaware of it being HD because HD will be standard and boring. It is just a high screen resolution after all. Nintendo will not market it as being HD. They will market it with it's new selling point which we don't know about. "groundbreaking new experiences" is not just PR spiel. It is what they tried to do with the Wii and it paid off massively. They know that releasing the same thing with higher specs is a recipe for failure.

@Prash: "for most normal human beings there are massively diminishing returns on improving graphics." I'm not sure I understand that statement. I think the opposite is true. The closer we get to photorealism, the more "normal human beings" will be interested in vifeogames. Entertainment Weekly now regularly covers video games, and Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain, with their lifelike protagonists are more relatable to a non gamer than than anything from previous generations (excluding Mario games).

I think this discussion brings up an interesting point, do SMBW and COD:MW2 belong in even the same catergory, let alone genre? Is a 360 or PS3 fps shooter a similar cultural product to a Wii platformer? Does Wii Dancing With the Stars (my in-laws have that game) have anything in common with a game like Bioshock or Final Fantasy XIII? I think people have paid lip-service to the Wii being essentially in a different market than the 360 and PS3 but it really is and the games provide a whole different experience, in my opinion. I do think that going forward Nintendo will have to offer more satisfying experiences for traditional gamers, or else they will abandon Nintendo's next console and I don't know that non-traditional gamers who own a Wii will find it necessary to purchase the next console.

@ Jonathan

Does games like COD:MW2 and FF XIII belong even in the same category, does FF XIII and Forza3 belong in the same category? I think the answer is as much No, as it is with Dancing with the Stars and Bioshock. They are just different games for different tastes.
You don't use the term hardcore gamer, instead of it you speak of traditional gamers.
But in my opinion, there is no homogenic group of "traditional gamers". Videogames are over 30 years old now. A gamer, that played on a VCS and later on his homecomputer and then moved on till the current generation has a completely different background, as somebody who played on the PS2 of his big brother (or sister) when he was 12 and now moved on to a PS3 to play COD:MW2.
I am somebody, who you could refer to as a traditional gamer. I played my first videogame on an old Pong clone in the late 1970s. After that, I played games on every single hardware generation, on Computers, consoles and handhelds.
After the last generation I was simply bored of many AAA games and I mainly played old games, many from the Pre 3d era. The Wii managed it to keep me interested in games at all, cause I liked the new approach, which reminded me of the beginnings of the industry. Everybody was a casual gamer back then, there were people who played certain games with more enthusiasm. The term hardcore gamer first appeared in the last two generations and the gamedesign approach, that resulted from this term lead, in my opinion, to a demise in game quality. Instead of looking for new game experiences and ideas, a formula, that was successful was repeated and repeated and repeated. That was something games always did, but the technological advance on the hardware side allowed developers to make the same game much much longer, as it was possible in previous times.
You say
"The closer we get to photorealism, the more "normal human beings" will be interested in vifeogames. "
I think, the opposite is true. The tendency to "photorealism" is a dead end with given technology. You have to take totally new approaches as Real Time Raytracing to get the Shadows right, to have correct reflections and you have to abandon the polygonal technologies completely to get something like round surfaces. Right now, no technology is advanced enough to get this done in Real Time. And even, if you reach this state, what's the use for? Look at CGI movies, with Pixar's technology, it would be easy to make something more "phtorealistic", but they decided to make the movies more "cartoonish", cause here, you can make an artistic statement, you can create a visual style, that is remarkable. I can't distinguish the people from MW2 from any other FPS of this generation, but I can distinguish with one look the human characters from "Up" and from "Wall-E".
For me, the future in gaming isn't photorealism, but art direction. A game like Zelda the Windwaker has in my opinion better graphics, then COD:MW2 and I think, it will still be played 10 years from now, I don't think anybody will care then about MW2.

@Christian: I think you misunderstand, I don't think that all games should going forward aspire to photorealism. I do think that the blossoming of videogames into full cultural relevance won't happen until the technological barriers to photorealism have been overcome.

Presonally, I look forward to seeing all kinds of content, from games like Flashback and Out of This World to "harcore" fps titles to more action adventure and rpg type games. For some types of games, photorealism will significantly enhance the experience. I believe there will still be room for more Mario games, and I certainly agree that art style is super important to how enjoyable and how beautiful a game is. Oddworld: Strangers Wrath is my favorite game for the XBOX, largely because it was so visually interesting.

But looking at your own argument, when consoles can run games that look as good as Up, the debate over whether things should be "realistic" becomes an aesthetic rather than a technological one, and I am loking forward to that time.

And I disagree strongly with your take about genre/experience. Yes, Forza is a different game in a different genre than FFXIII, but it is targeted at largely the same consumer with similar expectations. Both require a lot of control, have more adult oriented content, gameplay and progression. By analogy, Departed and Cable Guy are very different movies, but they cater to a wholly different audience or group than Hotel for Dogs. Dancing With the Stars Wii is Hotel for Dogs, Forza is Cable Guy and FFXIII is Departed.

Console Gamer, traditional gamer, core gamer, or even just plain gamer, to me, are all terms describing people that are likely to be interested in electronic games (PC or console) for either their lifetime or a significant part of it, and play games that require some degree of time commitment as a lesiure pursuit or hobby, unlike someone who plays solitaire at work. The Wii has sold a lot of units, many of whom are to people who already were gamers, many who despite owning a Wii will not become gamers, and others whose interest in gaming will continue to broaden. I'm not sure all of those types of Wii owners will move on to the next Wii console.

@Jonathan
"The closer we get to photorealism, the more "normal human beings" will be interested in videogames."

Sales data does not show any correlation between photorealism and broad appeal. A lot of women left gaming after the arcade era as graphics were becoming much more realistic. About half of the top 10 selling games right now go for photorealism while the other half completely avoid it.

By moving toward photorealism we are actually moving towards the lowest point of uncanny valley because we are so far from representing a realistic human being in a way that can fool our brains, which have evolved to pick up on uncountable facial nuances. I'm not saying that no one should aspire to achieve this goal, just that it's not the route to wide appeal right now or in the very near future. Christian has a point when he says that 3D animated films have been much more successful in aiming to be beautiful cartoons than purely photorealistic. Actually, a camera lens can have such an influence on an image that there's not one meaningful way of defining photorealism. People usually mean something more like what I will call cine-realism, where games look like hollywood films which are carefully lit, shot and processed to produce an appealing image. Producing games that look exactly as real as our everyday lives might get dull quickly!

"the blossoming of videogames into full cultural relevance won't happen until the technological barriers to photorealism have been overcome."

Sometimes I feel gamers are so worried about achieving cultural relevance that they don't realise they already have it. What does it mean for a medium to have cultural relevance? Is it the number of people that engage in it? If so then gaming already has greater cultural relevance than poetry. Does cultural relevance mean it should be taught in school along with other arts? Pssh, why shoot for such an artificial form of cultural relevance? School curriculums barely scratch the surface of life. Is culturual relevance to have participation of people from all walks of life? If so, then non-photo realistic games are proving to be very culturally relevant.

Your statement above is virtually identical to saying that animated films will not achieve cultural relevance until they become photorealistic, which is obviously false!

"The Wii has sold a lot of units, many of whom are to people who already were gamers, many who despite owning a Wii will not become gamers, and others whose interest in gaming will continue to broaden. I'm not sure all of those types of Wii owners will move on to the next Wii console."

This is true of every console. Not everyone with a PS2 bought a next gen console either. People may well have left gaming because it became irrelevant for them. Luckily, other people got into gaming so it could continue to grow. It's virtually impossible to know the extent of this though.

And be careful with your use of the term "gamer" in an exclusive way. Perhaps a sign of cultural relevance is that a medium is not dominated by those for whom it is their main hobby and people can casually enjoy it without being made to feel they are outsiders...

Oh an FFXIII is The Departed? Some of the little Final Fantasy I have ever witnessed is a friend playing one (VIII maybe?) or should I say watching it, as I stumbled in on a 10 minute cut scene and The Departed it was not! :P

@Prash-I'm not sure you are American so I will reply based on my experience as an American. Video games do not have the same regard here as other mediums, like books, film and music. Film did not always have the same relevance that books and music do. It was something that came over time, and film studies did not exist until well after the movies had become talkies and color was the norm.

Video game studies, as a cultural criticism type major, still does not exist. Roger Ebert made waves with gamers when he said that video games are not art, but no one outside of gamers cared.

"Sales data does not show any correlation between photorealism and broad appeal. A lot of women left gaming after the arcade era as graphics were becoming much more realistic. About half of the top 10 selling games right now go for photorealism while the other half completely avoid it."

That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read, you are absolutely grasping at straws. There is no relationship between graphics and women leaving arcades.

What is your point anyway, that photorealism is bad? Also a silly, almost Ludddite argument. The uncanny valley is a problem because even if people could be rendered photorealistically, you would have to be able to animate them exactly how people move. Guess who did that-James Cameron. Games that look as real as real life would only be boring if the games are boring. Are movies boring because they look like real life? Again, another silly argument.

Also, Prash, do you understand that I was analogizing games to movies or what that means? I'm just saying that more than genre seperate Cable Guy and Departed from Hotel For Dogs, just like more than genre seperate Forza, FFXIII and Wii Dancing With the Stars. Are you playing the Gamasutra comments section for laughs or something? Do you have a fan base here? I think I made a valid point.

@Bob, I'm not sure what you are saying. There will always be aplace for shooters just like there will always be a place for action movies. I just hope that video games can achieve the breadth of content and ideas that other "interactive" media like books, film and music can, where people can have all sorts of experiences playing them. Why can't a game have the same impact as a good movie? Why shouldn't I want it to have that impact? Bioshock, in my opinion was almost there, it just got bogged down by some awkward game mechanics and had too much of a gamey climax/resolution.

@ Jonathan
You say
"Film did not always have the same relevance that books and music do. It was something that came over time, and film studies did not exist until well after the movies had become talkies and color was the norm."
and
"Why can't a game have the same impact as a good movie? Why shouldn't I want it to have that impact?"

In films it's not a question of the material, the movie is shot on or the budget, that results in the reception of it's quality.
A small independent film like Juno can win an Oscar and be widely considered as a great piece of art. In games on the other hand, we are currently in a situation, were a fraction of the industry and the players measure the quality of a game purely by it's production values. The call for photorealism is in my opinion part of that.
It is as if a movie like Transformers would be considered as a better movie than Juno, just because it has more special effects.
Francis Ford Coppola shot his last movie Youth without Youth on digital video, a very cheap way of producing a movie, but nobody judged the movie on this detail, criticis concentrated on the other aspects of the movie.
As long, as games don't overcome their fixation with technology, they can't have the same impact as movies.

@Christian I think the common ground that we have is that I agree the constant struggle to improve technology often comes at the expense of crafting satisfying gameplay, interesting level design or art direction. In my opinion though, which is of course different from yours, is that we aren't at the point where game makers and companies should be satisfied with the technology that goes into making and playing games.

There's a lot of stories that can't be effectively told yet in games, that gamers will/would want to experience, simply because the tech isn't there. Once we have hit that certain threshold, more resources can be devoted on the to interesting gameplay mechanics, better AI, etc., and on the visauls side more artists and fewer people to render their art. Even when games can render photorealistaclly with lifelike animations, there will continue to be incremental improvements, but the focus will shift from tech to artistic content.

@Jonathan

By the way, film studies were there, long before colour was the norm, in fact film studies existed in the times of silent movies, Sergej Eisenstein wrote essays on film making and the early film critique Bela Balasz wrote essays on movie theory in the 1920s.

I don't see, that games today are limited by technological barriers. We have more CPU power, than we need, we have more polygon fill rates, than anybody can use.
The problem is, that with this pure production values only the developement costs are rising and these costs are much to high today. The future in gaming, in my opinion, can only lie in more procedural content, to get closer to something like "reality", but this would require a totally different approach, than the way console and PC hardware is designed today.
"Once we have hit that certain threshold, more resources can be devoted on the to interesting gameplay mechanics, better AI, etc., and on the visauls side more artists and fewer people to render their art."
In my opinion, it has to be the opposite. It is necessary to devote more people to the interesting gameplay mechanics. In fact, all that HD gaming did on a visual developement level, it quadrupled the resolution and quadrupled the time it takes to create the textures, models, etc. Nothing new emerged from the last generation to this generation if it comes to HD, everything became less pixelated.
On the other side, on the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii gameplay mechanics were generated, that couldn't be done on the last generation of handhelds or consoles.
I don't mean this on a fanboyish level. I appreciate what Nintendo did for gaming in the past and I like, what they are doing today, that's no secret. I mean it on a cultural level. The Nintendo DS and the Wii expanded the group of gamers, they managed it to bring people to games, that wouldn't played otherwise. They did more for the cultural acceptance of gaming, than any HD game can ever do. I believe, that it's games like Wii Sports or Dr. Kawashimam, that can lead to a wider impact of games in general. COD:MW2 isn't of any interest outside a small circle of male gamers from 16-30. And I liked Bioshock, the whole references to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged were interesting and entertaining, but I don't think, it mattered amongst gamers in any way. I never read a review of the game, that even mentioned the whole Ayn Rand background of the game.
In the end it seems to me, that at this moment consumers are voting with their wallets. They vote for the improved gameplay mechanics and not for the improved graphics.

"I'm not sure you are American so I will reply based on my experience as an American."
I'm British actually but we get so much US culture here I'll pretty much get what you're talking about with reference to films and stuff.

"That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read, you are absolutely grasping at straws. There is no relationship between graphics and women leaving arcades."
I may not have been clear but I was not trying to demonstrate that relationship. I was trying to demonstrate the *lack* of a relationship. I didn't say people left gaming because of improved graphics, but that they left games despite improved graphics. They were not swayed that much by the graphics and apparently are not today.

"What is your point anyway, that photorealism is bad? Also a silly, almost Ludddite argument."
I actually tried to avoid this misunderstanding but apparently not hard enough. I don't think photorealism is bad. I don't think it necessarily harms the sales of games to the general public (if you go back far enough in this discussion you'll remember that group that we are talking about). I just don't think it helps that much. I made a separate point that I don't think photorealism has anything to do with cultural relevance. It is a technological feat that will impress people interested in technology, not necessarily those impressed with games as art or entertainment. Again, not saying that's bad. But the extreme argument that photorealism must be achieved as a historical inevitability is an overly technophilic argument (I suppose a technophile is the opposite of a Luddite) and an underlying assumption for a group of gamers.

Interestingly, you mention Bioshock, which in the hour or so that I got to play it I remember finding the graphics quite stylised. They were nice but there was something distinctly not realistic feeling about the character's proportions. I had played much more realistic looking games before and the technology was certainly available. Yet Irrational chose not to go there...

"Games that look as real as real life would only be boring if the games are boring."
Games that look like real life won't necessarily be boring, but you can see that they won't necessarily be interesting. I can tell you one thing for sure. After you've played through a few games that achieved the holy grail of ultimate photorealism the concept will have lost its novelty. Where does the technology progress from there if it must always progress? At this stage you go back to stylising things and necessarily making them less realistic.

"Are movies boring because they look like real life?"
Well actually I was saying that movies look very different to real life and I was getting at this earlier. Compare the look of a high budget movie to a cheap documentary. The movie is extremely processed often to great effect. Every aspect of the production has been polished to make it more enjoyable to watch. The actors are covered in make up. The colours are softened, sharpened and changed according as required for greatest emotional impact. A different lens may be chosen to give a field of view not realistically observable by humas. Rough sounds are taken out. Incedental sounds are put in. etc. etc. The cheap documentary looks more like real life but it isn't necessarily pleasant to watch. Even so, actual real life looks quite different to these things. My point is that movies are very stylised in order to present something more interesting that bare reality. Games have the freedom to start in pure imagination and needn't treat bare realism as a holy grail. Obviously it can help immersion so it's good sometimes!

"Also, Prash, do you understand that I was analogizing games to movies or what that means?...Are you playing the Gamasutra comments section for laughs or something?"
Actually, yes that FFXIII/Departed comment was just for laughs. Sorry if it offended you. The smiley afterwards was supposed to illustrate that it was in jest.

@Prash "Even so, actual real life looks quite different to these things. My point is that movies are very stylised in order to present something more interesting that bare reality."

I totally agree and that statement in no way contradicts what I have beentrying to say. The ability to generate photorealism does not in any way require that game developers use a photorealistic style with out any touches or flourishes to make it "more than" real life. A movie can be Wendy and Lucy or it can be 12 Monkeys, no reason why games couldn't vary even more.

Oh and is there really such a lack of video game studies? I see interesting essays posted here on Gamasutra every week and I read plenty of other sites which look at games in great critical depth. A quick google of "video game studies" reveals a lot, including Game Studies - "the international journal of computer game research". You can study course about games at universities, but they are mostly focused on the practical aspect of making them. I don't think video game studies is doing that badly considering the popularity and age of the medium. It still has some stigma attached to it and it hasn't infiltrated our academic institutions but that doesn't stop people from writing some damn insightful things anyway.

"I totally agree and that statement in no way contradicts what I have beentrying to say."

Then what you are saying does not apparently contradict what I was trying to say, which I said much earlier and you took issue with:

"for most normal human beings there are massively diminishing returns on improving graphics."

Remember, this discussion is about the potential successor to the Wii and the requirement for improved graphics. Since Nintendo are trying to target the mainstream they will improve the areas most lacking at the moment according to the opinion of the general population. And that is not the graphics. We went on quite a detour and we have come full circle. People at large are not asking for better graphics. I think it's even come to the stage where hardcore gamers at large aren't asking for better graphics, otherwise the next generation of high tech consoles would be around sooner rather than later, and perhaps the most graphically superior game ever to this day (Crysis) would not have been released three years ago.

"and perhaps the most graphically superior game ever to this day (Crysis) would not have been released three years ago."

And if graphics were that killer argument, it defintely would have sold better.

@Prash and Christian
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't improving graphics the primary reason we aren't still playing on our Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo? Are you guys saying that we have hit apoint where graphics no longer matter? I don't think that's possible, and if Sony or MS demoed a games machine and game that were a significant jump forward from this gen graphically I'm pretty certain there would be consumer interest. At least I have the past to draw on in support of my position, you two only have the Nintendo Wii itself to support your argument that consumers don't need or even want improved graphical fidelity from the Wii or any other console.

Also, to both of you I am am fairly sure there were "film studies" to coincide with the first movie ever made. I'm talking about a genuine academic acceptance of a cultural medium. As a point of reference, film studies became a major at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a prestigious and prgressive university in 1972 (I did one Google search). There was no video game studies major at the university I attended in 1999, although they may have have courses or a major now.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't improving graphics the primary reason we aren't still playing on our Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo?"

You keep straying from the point. This discussion is about Nintendo's current business. Even if your above statement were true it doesn't make graphics of higher than Wii quality an important driver in overall sales today. I agree that once a certain expectation of graphical quality is reached by many, THEN reaching that minimum is important for sales. My point has been that PS3 quality graphics overshoot the requirements of most people and Wii graphics meet the requirements of most people. So there would be little benefit and great cost in splitting the userbase by introducing a "Wii HD".

"if Sony or MS demoed a games machine and game that were a significant jump forward from this gen graphically I'm pretty certain there would be consumer interest."

Then why is there more consumer interest in the Wii than their current consoles, which are much more graphically capable? The interest you are talking about would almost all come from a subset of current 360 and PS3 owners. It would be great for those people but it would be a business mistake, which is why Sony and MS are not even considering it right now.

"As a point of reference, film studies became a major at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a prestigious and prgressive university in 1972 (I did one Google search). There was no video game studies major at the university I attended in 1999, although they may have have courses or a major now."

I have already conceded that games have not infiltrated what we call the upper echelons of culture including universities as much as films. However, I think we should be careful in using such institutions as some kind of authority. Many important aspects of culture subvert them already and while it would be nice to have them on board, I don't think they are "needed" for game makers to make great products and art, and for us to celebrate them, or for games to be accepted by the broader population. Also, I can't think of any examples of evidence that high-tech graphics would help that acceptance anyway.

"At least I have the past to draw on in support of my position, you two only have the Nintendo Wii itself to support your argument that consumers don't need or even want improved graphical fidelity from the Wii or any other console."

The most powerful console has rarely been the most popular in any generation, and PCs lost a lot of their market to graphically inferior consoles so the past actually supports the point that I am making. I am not saying graphics never need to progress, just that Wii consumers don't need better graphics for a few years, which is why they don't need another console for a few years.

@Prash, your last argument is pretty irrelevant, the relative difference between competing consoles in a generation is historically minute when compared to the previous console. The Nintendo Wii is an exception and doesn't create a new rule. Time will tell if the Wii is an anomaly in the history of the video game console busines or a new norm. The MS consoles did as much to kill PC gaming as anything, since pretty much every non MMO PC game also comes out on a MS console these days for the fraction of the price of a gaming rig.

To say that Wii owners don't need a new console is just parroting the Reggie party line. Reagardless of the reasons why, Wii sales have been down something like 10 of the past 11 months, and I don't think their software sales are any different. That is an indicator of a lot of different things, but I'm pretty sure that Nintendo is taking it seriously (they have even stated so publicly). It would be naive and obtuse to believe that Nintendo isn't already designing the next Wii or a new console altogether.

I don't think going forward that the Wii will ever again sell more than the 360 and the PS3 combined, in software or hardware. Meaning that the market for HD consoles, going forward, will be the biggest console market out there.

I don't think industry people are alone in their desire to push tech forward (you should read the Mark Rein peice from GDC). I know I for one appreciated the jump from Morrowing to Oblivion (graphically at least) and I am looking forward to the next big jump.

Also, considering that games like Wii Play and Wii Sports are for the most part the games that people that own Wiis buy, graphics are almost totally irrelevant for a lot of Wii owners. Personally, I think a lot of Wii owners prefer the lack of graphical fidelity, since that makes the play experience more abstract, and less intimidating. You could slap 1992 graphics on a Wii and it wouldn't negatively impact sales in some of their consumer base. Then again, some people that own Wiis I'm sure would appreciate greater graphical detail and would buy a WiiHD. Those are the people that Nintendo needs to please going forward anyway, since they are the ones that are going to continue to buy games and support the brand.

@Jonathan
"Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't improving graphics the primary reason we aren't still playing on our Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo?"
The difference between an Super Nintendo or Genesis and a PS3 or Wii lies not in it's "improved" graphics, but in the way, the systems are able to process graphics. Full textured 3D graphics weren't possible on the old 2D systems and so, it was a logical step to move on to consoles, that are able of rendering them, when it was possible.
3D rendered games allowed designers to explore whole new game ideas. Games like We love Katamari, Tomb Raider, Panzer Dragoon or many others aren't possible with 2D graphics.It is more like a situation in which Nintendo or Sega released another console after the Super NES or the Genesis, doubling the number of sprites on screen and quadrupling the colour depth. I would say, this console would be pretty uninteresting, cause almost every 2D game designers can think of was possible on the SNES and Genesis.
The next generation offered so far no new gameplay experience. The graphics are in a higher resolution, but that isn't the step forward needed for most customers. By the time the PS2 was released, the PS1 was technically dead. People saw the limitations of the platform, the lack of filtering, the wobbling textures, the slow speed of the 3D rendering, all this points made PS1 games look ugly after a few years, when the new factor of 3D graphics began to wear off. But the PS2/XBox1/Gamecube generation never came into this situation.
Games like God of War 1 and 2. Resident Evil 4 or Shadow of the Collossus showed, that this generation wasn't at it's end, when it was replaced.
And right now, I don't see any game, that isn't possible with slightly inferior graphics on the last generation. Gameplaywise the HD consoles failed so far to create something new on a fundamental basis.
But more important the new generation doesn't offer the possibility for a technical revolution, that the PS1 and the Saturn started. The technology is the same as in the previous generations, everything is a little bit better now, but the games aren't raytraced, the Soft Shadows are still flickering and the animation still relies on motion capturing to look good. These technologies looked fine on a PS2 and the look better on a PS3, but they don't look much different for most customers.

"At least I have the past to draw on in support of my position, you two only have the Nintendo Wii itself to support your argument that consumers don't need or even want improved graphical fidelity from the Wii or any other console."
No, like many others, you overlook, why the Wii is successful. It is not because the Wii isn't capable of HD, it is a successful system, because of it's motion controls. Obviously people liked the concept more than the possibility to play in HD, so they bought the console, that offered them what they liked.
The Wii is in one aspect technological more advanced than the PS3 and the 360, the Wii has motion controller support, a technology, the others are slowly trying to adapt now. The Wii isn't inferior to those consoles, when it comes to customers, it's the technological more advanced platform.
"The Nintendo Wii is an exception and doesn't create a new rule. Time will tell if the Wii is an anomaly in the history of the video game console busines or a new norm."
No, the Wii isn't the exception. It's the same with the DS and the PSP, at launch every analyst stated, that the DS was inferior, but they all overlooked 2 things, the PSP didn't had 2 screens and the PSP didn't had a touchscreen. Both were technological advantages, that made the faster CPU, better GPU and the optical drive meaningless.

With film studies, I am with Prash, I don't think the existence of game studies on an academic level is necessary to say they exist. Film studies today rely heavily on the things written since the early 1920s, so, if these texts matter today, in a academic context, they are part of the film studies.

@Christian, I can tell you make some valid points but I need distinct paragraphs. As far as what I can parse at this point in my day: The DS/handheld market is apples and oranges with the console market, so I'm not going to bother. I've never been particularly interested in handhelds, either as a consumer or as an observer of that market.

Second, the iterations of consoles involve technological improvements, obviously. But what is cited as the biggest leap in console gaming? 3-D, which is essentially a graphical leap forward from sprites to polygons that resulted in gameplay changing from sidescrollers and 2-D fps and fighting games to 3-D fighters and fps, and 3-D platformers like Mario 64.

Third, I don't think that the Wii is technologically more advanced than the Wii or PS3. It has a different control system which is "new," but the PS3 has no problem handling similar or even more advanced technology. Obviously.

Fourth, I don't understand your point about the Wii and HD.

Fifth, as far as film studies, I am arguing that as a cultural medium advances, a cottage industry developes around it in terms of theory and criticism. Literary studies are hundreds of years old as an academic field, film studies is a few decades old, and video game studies is getting fully underway as we speak. Of course there was probably somebody writing papers about why video games feature male protaganists and whatnot with the advent of mario twenty some-odd years ago, but that is not what I am talking about. For something to be accepted as an art form by the masses, it usually has to go through a gentrification process-see Jazz, Modern Literature, Cinema, Rock n Roll, and maybe someday hip hop. Games are still a step behind hip hop in mainstream cultural legitimacy. At least in America.

"Second, the iterations of consoles involve technological improvements, obviously. But what is cited as the biggest leap in console gaming? 3-D, which is essentially a graphical leap forward from sprites to polygons that resulted in gameplay changing from sidescrollers and 2-D fps and fighting games to 3-D fighters and fps, and 3-D platformers like Mario 64."

Indeed, so 3D was *much more* than a graphical improvement. What new game mechanics can exist because of normal mapping or 1080p or even 3DTV?

"Third, I don't think that the Wii is technologically more advanced than the Wii or PS3. It has a different control system which is "new," but the PS3 has no problem handling similar or even more advanced technology. Obviously."

This isn't about us deciding which console should be deemed more technologically advanced. To the normal consumer the Wii is more technologically advanced because all consoles do 3D graphics and the Wii does motion controls too. The PS3 may be capable of it but where are the motion control games? They don't exist yet. The Wii has had them for more than 3 years now. That is called being more advanced in the motion control aspect. Going for this new dimension of gaming has been part of what has led to their success so it's being copied now. When you're the one getting copied, you're more advanced. It often seems like the group loosely described as hardcore gamers yearn and ache for Nintendo to copy the other consoles' graphical capabilities just so they feel validated or respected in some way. So they can say "yes, we still control the industry and we can bend Nintendo to our will". The truth is, they are becoming a minority and are largely ignored outside of certain parts of the gaming market.

@ Jonathan
"As far as what I can parse at this point in my day: The DS/handheld market is apples and oranges with the console market, so I'm not going to bother. I've never been particularly interested in handhelds, either as a consumer or as an observer of that market."
This is not the way it works for a long time anymore. The markets of handhelds and stationary consoles are growing together for years now. The time, were handhelds were just for kids is long over. Just look at games the new Dragonquest for the DS or Monster Hunter for the PSP. These games are designed for people, that usually play on stationary consoles and they are huge successes.

"But what is cited as the biggest leap in console gaming? 3-D, which is essentially a graphical leap forward from sprites to polygons that resulted in gameplay changing from sidescrollers and 2-D fps and fighting games to 3-D fighters and fps, and 3-D platformers like Mario 64."
This is basically paraphrasing what I said. My argument was, while the PS1 brought new gameplay possibilities to games, the PS3 only brings a higher resolution.

"Third, I don't think that the Wii is technologically more advanced than the Wii or PS3. It has a different control system which is "new," but the PS3 has no problem handling similar or even more advanced technology. Obviously."
This is because technology power only means graphical capabilities to you. No the PS3 can't handle a similar input system as the Wii. The Move system of the PS3 is entirely different. It requires a camera and works with tracking this camera. It is like saying the Wii is 100% comparable to the PS3 in graphical terms, cause both are capable of displaying coloured pictures on a TV set. If it comes to giving out HD pictures, the PS3 is technological more advanced than the Wii, if it comes to motion controls, the Wii is technological more advanced, than the PS3. Right now, there are no motion controls for the PS3 (I don't take the real inferior Six-Axis controller into account), by the end of the year, Sony will have real motion controls, but they aren't "similar or even more advanced", they are different and, from what is known today, seem inferior, they require a camera and they only can track 60 movements per second.
While it has to be seen if the movement tracking rate is a real problem, the need for a camera surely is one. First of all, you need one equipment part more, second, you have problems playing in dark rooms and third, you have problems with multiplayer games, cause every player has to be visible to the camera and people walking in front of you (to pick up a drink) will cause the system to fail.

"Literary studies are hundreds of years old as an academic field"
No, studies about poems are a few hundred years old, but these studies don't have much in common with literary studies, cause they lack the comparative and interpretive approach, that is so important for modern litarery studies. Those studies were about metre and rhyme, a whole different field. Literary studies emerged in the 19th century with the rise of longer prose texts as the novel.
If it comes to the mainstream approach, it isn't important if something is discussed on an academic leven to be considered as art.
Hip Hop is music, music is generally accepted as an art form. Hip Hop is only one aspect of music. Look at Comics. They were not part of the academic discourse for very long, but since the 1960s, they are widely considered as an art form. I am not sure, what you mean by "gentrification process", cause I know this term only in a sociological context, where it describes the social changes in certain urban quarters.

@Prash "This isn't about us deciding which console should be deemed more technologically advanced. To the normal consumer the Wii is more technologically advanced because all consoles do 3D graphics and the Wii does motion controls too."

Now you are playing some sort of dialectical shell game. I've read enough of your posts, including your discussions with Kevin Jones, to know that you are an ardent Nintendo supporter and this debate with you will go nowhere. The Wii doesn't so anything nuts and bolts wise that can't be easily duplicated by either the 360 or PS3.

@Christian I can't take you seriously when you tell me that film studies began in 1920 but literary studies didn't begin until the 19th century. Also, I was playing a little free and easy with the word "gentrification" but I meant something along the lines of cultural gentrification, where the cultural of a minority is assimilated and reformed into first mass culture and then later into the highbrow, a la Jazz in the United States.

I know I'm not going to get the last word with either of you two, but I hope you can at least see where I'm coming from. If sales trends mean anything at the moment soom of the bloom is coming off the Nintendo rose. Not that I should care but I'm happy to see it, because frankly the games coming out on the 360 and PS3 are more interesting and innovative, and the fact that they are being well received commercially means that I am going to see a continued evolution, technologically and in the sophistaction of the content. Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and the upcoming Alan Wake are some examples.

"The Wii doesn't so anything nuts and bolts wise that can't be easily duplicated by either the 360 or PS3."

You forgot to add "...with additional peripherals that can not be purchased yet".

You are talking about possibilities. I'm talking about actualities. It's true that the PS3 and 360 as platforms can have Wii-like motion control, but it doesn't mean anything unless a) it is released, b) people buy it, c) there are popular games for it. The Wii has had motion controls since 2006, and it has a motion-plus attachment that will have been released almost a year and a half before Sony and MS finally produce their reply to motion controls. With your reasoning, I could say the Wii can better PS3 storage because it could have a 1000GB hard drive. Nintendo could simply release it as a USB peripheral and a system update. Also, anyone could make a gaming console more graphically advanced than the PS3 by squeezing a gaming laptop into a set-top box. But no one has actually done these things because they would not sell.

All this to make the obvious point that the Wii is currently and for the past 3+ years the most technologically advanced console in the motion control aspect. This is not controversial. The additional piece of info that makes my point above is that this technological aspect is much more important and visible to the average consumer than processing power.

The second part of your post above suggests that you are mixing your personal views on games up with this discussion of the business. I don't personally like the best-selling Wii games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit etc. (nor am I interested in the games you mention above except perhaps Alan Wake) but I'm not asking Nintendo to make every game to cater to me and people like me. Simply for them to continue bringing games to the masses. The talk about cultural acceptability is off-topic.

I do believe that Nintendo's currently researching the next console, but I don't believe that it'd be a WiiHD or something along those lines.

Basically, the big thing right now is motion control. Not HD, not the number of polygons that can be drawn onscreen, not the texture sizes, color depth or nifty special effects. Basically, Nintendo hit the jackpot with their console's basic premise, and brought what "gamers" and "non-gamers" alike enjoyed (I use the term "gamer" as a broad word, encompassing all people who play video games regularily or semi-regularily), broadening the video game market to include people who didn't play many games (or none at all) before, which ultimately was a Good Thing for the industry.

People can say the PS3 and XBox360 have awesome graphics and better processing power all day, but what is selling right now isn't that, and even Sony and Microsoft have acknowledged it and changed their tactics accordingly, adding motion control to their consoles in order to rival Nintendo's Wii, which is, graphics-wise, the worst one of the trio, but has had more success!

Please note that I don't mean that graphics suck, or don't mean a thing. I believe that interesting graphics, while important to make a game stand out from the rest and make it "nice", but they should in no way be part of the "Unique selling points" of a game. To me, that should be reserved for gameplay (which the Wii delivers); even though many Wii games don't currently appeal to me, I understand that many other people like them, and that's what counts.

Graphics debate aside, I'm with Reggie when he states that he's against virtual clothing players can purchase. I might be biased, but I have never enjoyed microtransactions, and would never pay to buy clothing for my virtual avatar; also, I've noticed that Miis aren't realistic representations of the Wii users, but rather cartoony avatars which, in my oppinion, allow just enough customization to make a roughly similar avatar and get the point accross, so adding clothing and other accessories to the Miis would go against that simplicity.

Also, as far as I know, Miis don't have a widespread use, which makes giving them additional accessories somewhat useless (unless more games implement Miis somehow); I don't know how PS3 and XBox360 avatars are used, though, so I'm unable to compare their respective avatars to the Wii's Miis.