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."

One of the things I've wondered...

[Jerf]

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...)

"Need" is a Strong Word

[MeanderingMind]

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.

TV viewers will drive HDTV, not gamers

[jchenx]

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).

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Tankko]

Yes, and I've seen these HDTV's and they are HD in that they accept HD input, but the resolution is NTSC. You see them all over the place at Sears and Walmark. That is what most people are buying, and they do look nicer than CRT's because they are digital and LCD. But they are not HD as most people here would think of it.

Re:...umm...

[kolding]

Not really.
PC gamers sit 2 feet from their screen.
Console gamers sit 5 to 15 feet away from their screens.

It's a very different way of interacting with your game.

Heck, when I play games on my PC, I hardly ever play more than about 1280x1024 resolution. Beyond that, it doesn't provide significant improvements.

Console Jokes

[Explodo]

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?

Re:The answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in America, but in Japan it has *all* gone plasma and LCD. The only CRT sets still for sale are direct view, and classic 15.7kHz NTSC through and through. There were a few HD CRTs until about 5 years ago, but even they didn't display the full 1125i HiVision signal. They were also heavy as bricks, limited to about 36", had poor geometry and >$3k price tags. Indeed I can't find a single electronics store or online shop that still sells them (and there are no current models) so for the home market at least, all the console HD gamers will be on resolution-fixed displays.