Wii Graphics 'Better Than At E3'

Gamespot and GameDaily have additional details on Nintendo's upcoming console. Gamespot reports on comments by Nintendo President Iwata that they were specifically not going for high-end graphics with the Wii. He goes on to say that some of their staff initially disagreed with the adoption of the Wiimote, but public and internal reaction has allayed the fears of detractors. GameDaily reports on comments from ATI, who says there is still a lot left to see from Wii's graphical output. What was shown at E3 was 'just the tip of the iceberg.' From the article: "Industry sources have said that the Wii GPU would be moderately more powerful than the GameCube's GPU, but how much more we don't know. Conservative estimates from developers have placed the Wii console as a whole at 2 - 2.5 times more powerful than the GameCube."

Comments

They may have a winner

[Puff of Logic]

On price alone, I think Nintendo's going to do well. I'm not a console-gamer, but if I chose to get into console gaming, I'd go with a Wii I think. After all, I already have an incredibly expensive box full of hardware for super-pretty games: my desktop!

Video enhances gameplay: but it's only a topping

[w33t]

I have to say, that even though the graphics have never been the issue with the Wii/Revolution I am still very happy to see that they appear very much "next gen".

I have to face the fact, that even though I admire gameplay and that "game-play" is really why we "play-games", graphics are darn interesting.

Additionally, the fact that the Wii is going to offer such a unique interface device will, I think, allow us to see "graphics" which will be completely absent on the other consoles. What I mean by this is that because the wiimote offers such a more intimate and intuitive interface with the console's game world that we will be able to interact with it in ways that will have the effect of looking even more "real-life" than a console with simply raw video processing power.

Example: by being able to hold a cooking skillet or wok and flip, shake, swirl and turn the food around in it the resulting imagery on the screen should looks very much and especially FEEL very much more "life like" than by being forced to use a joystick or keypad to move the virtual cookware.

Any additional video processing power should only serve to further enhance this experience. And that's truly what video should be for video games - the enhancement part (like a spice) - not the main course.

Hmm, I'm using a lot of cooking examples - is it lunch time yet?
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Music should be free