[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]I know Nintendo is anti-HD for some reason, but imagine the look on ever haters face if Nintendo had said, "oh yeah, we're upgrading the Wii to full 1080P". I mean, if Microsoft can "upgrade" the 360 to a PS3, er.. 360-S, why can't Nintendo follow suit?[/citation]
It's a bit of a different deal. The more pixels you have on-screen, the more graphics horsepower is needed to get the exact same effects on-screen. PC gamers have known this for years; You can get 60fps in the same game with a weaker video card just by cranking down the resolution. Because the Wii only has to do 480p, it can actually get most of the same effects as you see on the 360 and PS3 with FAR weaker hardware. To give you an idea of pixel-counts, and hence relative demand for the same visual quality:
720x480 (480p) - 0.35 megapixels (37.5% 720p)
1024x576 (576p) - 0.59 megapixels (x1.71 Wii)
1280x720 (720p) - 0.92 megapixels (x2.66 Wii)
1920x1080 (1080p) - 2.07 megapixels (x6 Wii)
5040x1050 (1050p EyeFinity) - 5.29 megapixels (x15.31 Wii)
7680x1200 (1200p EyeFinity) - 12.29 megapixels (x35.6 Wii)
So that's right, to handle the exact same games, at the exact same visual effects, at 720p, Nintendo would have to make the Wii over two and a half times as powerful; nearly putting it close to the Xbox 360. (which is around 3-5 times as potent) In fact, these higher resolutions require so much, that both Microsoft and Sony have a few nasty secrets: their top shelf games actually never hit above 720p, and for the 360, a lot don't even do 720p; they do 576p (or something close) and simply stretch the image to fit. So in reality, it's a lot more complicated than it looks to make a "high-def remake." For the improved consoles, the fixes are more minor, easily changed; adding a new built-in device like Wi-Fi, or a new interface, or a new hard drive. They don't require touching the core innards.
So while we can (and just possibly might) see a revised Wii, don't exepct that "games run in 720p" to be something it'd bring, as that'd require replacing the GPU and CPU with something distinctly more powerful, as WELL as patches for each individual game to adjust it to the new resolution. Rather, things like an upgrade to the Wi-Fi, (perhaps to n) more internal storage, (perhaps from 512MB of flash to several gigabytes) and possibly DVD playback support. (though this could've been done on the original Wii through software...) But actually upgrading the internals to run games at a higher resolution would be equivalent to making a whole-new console.
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