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Do Gamers Really Need HDTV?
Gamasutra has up an article, their latest in the 'Analyze This' series, exploring whether gamers are really clamoring for the HD era ... or if the only people looking forward to HD gaming are the game makers. All three analysts seem to think HD is very important, but with varying levels of fervency. From the article: "On the Nintendo front, Nintendo has sacrificed graphics that can be viewed by the minority for a price that can benefit the majority. So, no, I don't think that they've made a mistake in the short run. Over the long run, we'll have to see: If HDTV adoption rates accelerate, the differences between the Wii and the Xbox 360 and PS3 may become more important, and it may end up that sell-through of the Wii begins to decline. That's a couple of years away, and my crystal ball isn't quite that clear."
Wide-spread HDTV penetration will happen when they become commonplace in a variety of retail outlets for a comparable price to what one could purchase a classic CRT-based TV now. Maybe in 4-6 years??? (pure speculation there on my part) By then, Nintendo would recongize that trend and have thier next console take advantage of HDTV resolutions.
go ahead and ask any PC gamer if to choose between 640x480 or 1600x1200.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Disclaimer: I have an "HDTV" in the form of LCD hooked up to Xbox360.
The whole HDTV argument is kind of moot. The status quo of video gamings certainly do not demand HDTVs, but IMHO that's a limitation that game developers are trying to overcome. For years we've been stuck in the world of ultra-huge text just so it's readable on a crappy tube set. We've been unable to communicate detailed information to the gamer. Think about the resolution as a mode of information bandwidth. The more resolution you have to work with (within limits) means the more data you can pass to the gamer. This is why RTS games work on PCs but not on consoles (beyond the obvious control difficulties) - these games demand that a lot of information (unit health, unit selection, unit status, squads, tactics, waypoints, etc) be visible all at once, which before the HD era has simply not been possible.
The way I see it, the HDTV thing is good. It further reduces the gap between PC and console gaming, allowing game developers to put games that would never have worked on a 480i tube TV on a console. To me this is a lot more than being able to see the tiny glint on a suit of armour - there is more to the HD issue than mere aesthetics.
or photography at least. Not sure what you would call a bad screenshot. But on the second page they complain for the second time about how Capcom's Dead Rising had illegible print on standard (even 480p) TVs. Yet, they do not show what the text looks like, just a shot of Frank smooshing some zombies with a park bench. I'm not in need an example, I've played it on a 36" 480p TV (and yes it's still very difficult to decypher most of the words). The game has text on the bottom of the screen well over half the time you're playing, it wouldn't be hard to get a screen capture of the script.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
One of the things I've wondered is if Nintendo has looked into the feasibility of releasing the HDWii in, say, three years. The Wii is supposed to already support widescreen at 480p (I think; google searching was a bit inconclusive but pointed to widescreen support), and the hardest part of upscaling to HD resolutions would be handling varying aspect ratios sanely in the game, as there would be no way whatsoever to hack that in later. (You can handle them non-sanely, but not sanely.)
If they decided to design a new graphics card that was designed from day one to have the exact same performance as the current one, only at a higher resolution, it could be feasible.
Then, once HD adoption has improved and once the graphics card prices have dropped, they could release an HD Wii that played the old games, only at higher resolution, and the games should mostly work. (A few small patches may be needed, and the odd game may not work at all.) This way, they don't go to market with expensive new features most people can't use until most people can use them; best of both worlds.
Polygon-based 3D game scale up really nicely. You wouldn't get higher-resolution textures magically out of the deal, but just actually rendering the whole HD space, rather than upsampling an SD-sized signal, would look much sharper. You might see a bit more pop-in and it's faintly possible the balance of some games might be broken by being able to see a bit farther, but mostly it ought to work.
Yes, there are technical issues, but I don't think they are insurmountable, and even if there is some set of games that just don't work in HD, you can always just run them in SD mode, which the HDWii would need to support anyhow. (Especially if they completely replace the Wii with the HDWii, instead of maintaining two product lines.) Probably the biggest issue would be if games strongly assume SD resolution with some sort of pointer, although it's still possible that such games would still work, it's just that you'd still only be able to point with SD-pixel resolution, which probably most people wouldn't even notice. (Any game that asks for pixel-perfect pointing almost certainly won't be fun anyhow...)
"...gamers who want HD have been using their PCs as their primary platform with a phat 20"+ LCD attached that can do 1680x1050 or more widescreen."
That's an amazing generalization. Being able to run new top-of-line games on a 20"+ LCD doing 1680x1050 costs quite a bit, both in initial investment and constantly chasing the upgrade curve. I never did it - my PC is still too crappy to play Half-Life 2 at anything above 800x600. I am not inclined to sink thousands into such a machine when now a console can do HD for a fraction of the price.
Assuming a console lifetime of 5 years... $600 for consoles plus some accessories.
vs... $4K+ to maintain a system at good game-ability (ability to run all new games at relative high resolution and settings) over 5 years.
One is affordable for me. The other never was.
To harp entirely on the semantic, there is probably a near zero number of gamers who "need" HDTV. These people should be found and given treatment for their unhealthy obsession.
For the rest of us, we'll either make do without and enjoy looking like a nutcase swingling an oblong white doohickey around or we'll get 57.352" wide screen dilithium concentrate HD TVs and enjoy killing zombies in glorious resolutions.
Either way I'm stoked.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
IMHO, it's TV viewers that will drive this whole HDTV-debate, not gamers. So to talk about whether or not gamers really need HDTV is moot.
We all seem to forget that the primary use for the TV in most households, is to view TV shows. If Joe Bob is going to get an HDTV, it's not because he or his kids want to play video games in HD, but because the whole family has this need: Mom wants to see her prime-time shows in all HD glory, Dad wants to catch his football shows in HD, the kids want to play games in HD, etc.
So, is HD adoption in general growing in the US? It certainly is. Every holiday season, it seems like HDTV is the "big gift" to save up for. If not then, its the tax-return season. Or around the time of the Superbowl (guys want to get a new TV in time for the "big game"). Eventually we'll get to the point where half the country now has some sort of HD TV set. It's anyone's guess how long it will be (I'm betting it won't be for another 5-10 years).
-- jchenx
Long answer: Game Boy.
I can play FEAR @ 1600x1200 on my 21" CRT at HIGH, 1280x1024 @ Ultra. And, $600 for it.
One frame per second doesn't count.
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F-Zero GX is glorious in 16:9 + 480p and it STILL pushes 60 FPS. If you don't have the component cables for the GC, I'd recommend them for the Wii and to replay some of the GC games that support it.
As a PC and Console gamer (XBox 360), and an HDTV owner, I can say that consoles at 1080i are still disappointing, not so much for how they look, but for how they perform. Several of the BIG xbox 360 titles show signs of slowdown when run at 1080i. Need for Speed: Most Wanted gets really nasty if you try to play split screen at 1080i. Madden 07 seems a little bit slower at 1080. Not all games slow down, but the fact that 1080 is pushing the "next-gen" console system's abilities reflects poorly on rushing to be first to market. I don't run any games under 1280x1024 on my PC, and several games at much higher resolutions, so who's the winner there?
I've had an HDTV for a few years now, and I still couldn't care less about console gaming in HD. Sure, I like watching movies and sports in HD, but that doesn't mean everything else is garbage now.
There are a lot of people now trying to justify their Xbox360 and future PS3 purchases by telling everyone that we need HD and that HD is the future of gaming. It doesn't make a difference gameplay wise. You're not going to get some life altering experience from playing games at higher resolutions.
We don't need it and it's not what the majority of people have, or will have in the next 5 years. When they can deliver consoles that support HD for a reasonable price to consumers who actually have HDTVs, then obviously things will be different...but for now it's just not worth it for the average consumer.