Wii Confirmed at 480p 223
Eurogamer is reconfirming that the Wii only outputs at 480p, after the official Nintendo magazine mistakenly said otherwise. From the article: "Nintendo UK also recently said that it had every intention of releasing peripherals like the component cable — used to achieve the 480p resolution — at retail, despite suggestions that you'd have to buy the cables through online shops in the US. The interest in Wii's high-resolution options is of course spurred on by Microsoft and Sony's battling over the higher end. Both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 generally offer games in 720p, with 1080p now possible for developers who want to go the extra mile (well, the extra 1,152,000 pixels, anyway)."
Does resolution matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Keeping to 480p seems like a good move by Nintendo. Many (I'd even go so far as to say most) of their games will be just as fun, you don't need a fancy TV just to enjoy it, and (perhaps most importantly) it keeps part cost, size, and power requirements down.
I was watching my teenage brother-in-law play Zelda (I don't recall which) on his gamecube the other day. The graphical style of the game was very effective, and I think it would actually lose appeal going to higher resolution.
Now all you experts can respond and tell me why I'm totally wrong.
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You are correct sir. The Wii will support widescreen at 480p.
I have unwittingly spewed FUD and must apologize.
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Although, it is maybe worth noting, that this 'widescreen' is actually anamorphic display (i.e. squeezed into 4:3 frame then displayed stretched out by the display). It is not actually ren
Not accurate (Score:2)
There is a big difference between that and the Wii which will only evrr be able to output 480 pixels.
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You're the one that's not accurate (Score:3, Informative)
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They really are pointing at different markets.
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A game console is always aimed at the gaming market, which is definitely not the same
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Now all you experts can respond and tell me why I'm totally wrong.
No, gameplay can be quite independent of resolution quality. In fact the earlier games were often good because they had to make the gameplay good. The graphics were never going to impress anyone.
All too often now a ga
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Here's an interesting approach - hire a team to design a game for the original Playstation and when they're done hire another team to reskin it for the PS3. Maybe the first team will make something that's actually fun instead of just making an interactive movie.
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The GPP said graphical style, not gameplay. He's probably talking about Wind Waker, which had a unique cartoony look to it. A higher resolution really wouldn't help it, because it's not meant to look realistic, and it mi
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And since the Wii seems to be the only "next-gen" console that natively supports four players on one console, that extra resolution would come in handy.
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Also, you could easily play xbox 360 on that in 1080p with the vga adapter.
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Do you mean:
A) Game is unplayable at 480, and playable at 720
B) Game is boring at 480, fun at 720
C) Game is visually horrid at 480, beautiful at 720
D) Game is playable and fun at both, but 720 makes it crisp and clean, and more lifelike.
Would I like to see Elebits at 1080? Absolutely. Would I pay 3x the price for the console to do that? Heck no.
I still play PS2 games at 480. Why would I suddenly HAVE to have 1080 for all my gaming?
I'll admit, some of th
Real-time war simulations (Score:2)
Real-time war simulations would benefit from more pixels. Each step from 320x200 to 640x480 to 1024x768 allowed PC RTS games to show much more information about the player's buildings and units on the screen at once. It also allows the camera to be pulled out farther to show more units at once or multiple views so that the player can see what's going on at each front.
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Another thing you should consider is that the Wii is going to stick around for what, five years or so? The 480p graphics will look absolutely primitive by then (I would argue they do right now), and the fact is that HDTV adoption is on the rise, and more and more households will have them in five year's time. Nintendo should've at least allowed the possibility of 720p/1080i
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No, however, PC games are played by sitting right in front of your computer screen, so every pixel counts. Unless you're playing 3 feet away from your large-screen TV, NOONE plays console games with as big a field of view as with PC games, so NTSC/ED resolutions are fairly comperable to standard PC resolutions when you take into acount how large each pixel looks from the pl
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For one, 1080p isn't going anywhere, in fact, in 2-3 years, the common populace MIGHT just be ready for it by then. I fully expect that in 3 years, the Wii will be priced at around $100, and still be making a large profit. An HD compatable system will probably be priced at $150, not even at launch prices. The best the PS3 is going to pull, because of attempting to make up for lost profits, will probably not be lower than $250. Even if Nintendo has to require that game developers bundle DVDs and high definti
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Well, ask yourself this: do you think 640x480 is still an acceptable PC gaming resolution or do you see benefit in higher resolutions?
Of course games benefit from higher resolutions. Where you are incorrect is that 480p is not 640x480. It is 852x480. DVD's are the same quality, and they look pretty good. Sure, 720p, 1080i, etc are better, but not mind blowingly better. I'd rather see perfectly lifelike graphics at 480p than cartoony graphics at 1080p at this point. 1080p wastes a lot of processing
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Which leads me to answer: "Of course it fucking matters!"
Look, I get the argument. A lot of people don't have HDTVs yet. But this is a resolution that has been with us since the 50s people. It is positively ancient.
Not to mention, the inherent artifacts of NTSC (Never The Same Colour). 29.97 frames per second, not
Heh... Yesteryear... (Score:2)
2) HDTV's are not going to get mass adoption for at LEAST another year and a half to two.
3) Can you convince me that all that higher resolut
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I'm personally a little disappointed that they're using this generation to push HD. I have a ton of DVDs with visual FX in them that far exceed what's possible on a console/PC even at standard definition. Now they have 6x the pixels to fill... and we're still not comin
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A wide-screen 480p format would probably be 75% as cool as 720p, but at a significantly lower cost.
I think the coolness factor of the new controller is more important (or lameness if it turns out to not live up to the hype).
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I don't watch tv, I don't have anything beyond basic cable for the news, and I certainly don't pay for HD service, I have an HDTV purely to play my games. IMO resolution might not add to th
Great!! (Score:2, Funny)
Not even capable of what the original XBOX can do? (Score:2)
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Re:Not even capable of what the original XBOX can (Score:2)
Re:Not even capable of what the original XBOX can (Score:2)
Is that true? I've never heard this. Which games, if you don't mind me asking?
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1080i is more taxing than 720p.
Not exactly (Score:2)
You are forgetting the horizontal resolution. 1080i still requires a higher throughput of pixels since it has a much higher horizontal resolution than 780p. The throughput required for each resolution is:
So the 1080i needs about 15% more pixels/s than 720p.
Not true (Score:2)
That's not true. You are correct in that 1080i sends less lines to the TV (or what have you), but graphics processors dont render interlaced images. Interlaced images are necessary for analog display devices so when your machine is connected to one, the controller only sends half the data because the display wants that. It still has the full resolution image
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HD movies would be sourced to film still, at 1080p24, and there is no reason to encode or display them at any higher frame rate. The data is not there. Every HD
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Basically what I'm saying is SDTV/DVD (in the US) is either:
480p24
480p30 or
480i60
p24 and i60 (telecined) for DVD or
p30 and i60 for SDTV
end up being the same amount of data (pixels x frames / sec)
HDTV/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is the same:
720p24/1080p24
720p30/1080p30 or
720i60/1080i60
I just read the specs on Sony's Blu-Ray site, and Blu-Ray doesn't even support 1080p60. I'd be really surprised if games do.
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In terms of the video game space there is no difference in programing 1080i and 1080p. While 1080i might only have 540 lines actually displayed they h
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For gaming a progressive 60fps 720p image is quite damn nice.
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From the article you linked to:
And that was from over a year ago. More than 1 in 10 is more than zero. That's somewhat higher than the market penetration of the Gamecube. Most of my friends have HD sets now a
Good news! (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:2)
Remember that 480p is more aong the lines of current DVD quality, and still better than the interlaced TV display we are all used to. It should still look better than last generation consoles from a detail persepctive.
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480p was not common though (Score:2)
Re:480p was standard on GameCube (1st party) (Score:2)
The issue was that the Gamecube used a non-standard digital port for component cabl [nintendo.com]
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VGA (Score:2)
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The Gamecube also had a VGA cable (albeit 3rd party). Even if the Wii doesn't support VGA, it does support component and there are a plethora of Component to VGA converters on the market for around $50... which is probably about what you'd pay for an official VGA cable anyway.
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If only they had done 720p (Score:2)
Most people don't have HDTVs. But I do. And the idea of buying a console that will never talk to it, never show me the full picture, is irritating. Particularly because I like the Wii.
If they had just managed to get it up to 720p, this whole discussion would be moot. 1080p is great and all, but as far as content is concerned (i.e. tv shows, films, games that can drive it) 1080p is basically science fiction right now. Won't be comm
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That's overstating it a bit, isn't it? An HDTV will still be able to display a 480p game much better than a 480i game. Standard 480i is 4:3, and interlaced so it's half the resolution. 480p will give it a widescreen capability at 720x480 resolution @ 60fps.
Which is not to say it's not disappointing.. I would also muc
Re: 480p is still plenty sharp. (Score:2)
Resolutions (Score:5, Interesting)
I sold TVs for 8 years. I had big banks of them - Standard, ED, HD - even some exotic 1080p stuff that didn't run anything except a special demo disk in a special machine.
One particular corner was a perfect test area. We had a 480P, 720P, and 1080I television of the same make and line (it was an LG set of televisions). Of the hundreds (if not thousands) of customers I showed these sets to, running HD PBS 1080 feed via Satellite (beautiful show, btw) - 8 out of 10 people pointed at the 480P set and said it was superior quality. When pressed for why they made that choice, they usually said "it was a hunch" and that they couldn't really tell between the three.
All three TVs had v-high quality cables, and my "test subjects" were sitting approximately 8 feet away from these 42" sets, which were all hung in equal lighting at eye level.
Then I'd move the test subjects up close - 2 feet away or so - and we could easily count the physical pixels on the 480 screen, wheras you'd have to move your head much closer to count the pixels on the 1080 screen. We could all see that, yes, upon inspection we *know* that 1080 is better...
But then I pointed at the pricetags. $1000 for the 480, $1800 for the 720, and $2500 for the 1080. Guess which one I sold the most of. (most of my data culled from 1-2-3 years ago so pricing/details may vary).
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I tend to sit much closer to my television when I'm playing games than when I'm watching TV- the whole lean forward vs. lean back interaction... I'd estimate maybe 5 feet vs. 10 feet, respectively. I'm not sure if this is common or not, but it could explain why folks care more about resolution when gaming.
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Re: Hi Resolution is more important on the PS3... (Score:2)
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Video games is not the sole reason for purchasing a television. In fact, most televisions are not used for games.
"I'd rather have the cheaper simpler solution too, but at high res text can be smaller and still readable (like in a status box in the corner of an fps)."
Smaller == less readable. Or do you keep your dekstop setting at 1600x1200?
"You could have shown something that would have made the difference more obvious, but didn't."
W
Re:A little late? (Score:5, Informative)
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How archaic! You'd think we were back in 0x3E8 BC!
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And if you could spell litre properly too, it'd be even better
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Wait a sec... I love America though. Where else can I get my Jack in the box and hollywood?
That and Canada sucks. Stupid fence sitting hypocrites. All they talk about on CSPAN is whom has to apologize to who. Instead of having real debate it just boils down to pointless name calling all day long. Christ, I'd d
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The pronunciation of "roof" (ruff like a dog makes, or roof with 'oo' like in 'boot') is not an 'America-wide problem'. It is localized to different geographic regions. The US is pretty darn big, and have multiple main dialects, and even more localized versions.
"Chiminey" would be the same thing - though I've neve
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ISO standard yyyy-mm-dd is better because dates in that format can be sorted using string algorithms: 2006-10-15 is before 2006-11-02.
Plus it's region-aspecific. In English, the first month is January, hence JAN. But in Spanish, it's Enero -- so what does JAN stand for?
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Let's forget all that crap (especially 2-digit years) and switch to ISO date: today is 2006-11-02. Thank you.
Oops... disregard. (Score:2)
At first glance the 02/11/2006 made me think of Feb, not 11/2...
Apparently recently there was a report that the Wii would output in 720i/p... And this is just debunking that error.
Sorry, move along, nothing to see here
umm (Score:2)
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Although, one problem that the 360 has is that many of the games are designed with HDTVs in mind. That leads to developers creating HUDs with text that is unreadably small on regular TVs. So far, I've noticed that problem in FEAR (the only unreadable text so far has been the name of the talking person in the upper left corner, which doesn't really matter), Dead Rising (the name of the weapon and
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I've been dabbling with creating a tv-based interface frontend and I've had a really hard time deciding what sizes to make things. I started development with the idea that I'd be running at a pretty high resolution (my 19" monitor), but then I realized that I wouldn't be sitting as close to the TV when it's set up (I'd like to be able to see what I'm doing even from across the room) and the TV won't be as sharp.
I've
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Yes, in both cases.
Probably not: in addition to less resolution the Wii has less processing power. I wouldn't expect the lower resolution to result in faster speed than the more powerful consoles for similar games in most cases.
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That is something that will hopefully be fixed as developers get more used to designing games with multiple resolutions. A problem that
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And to the GP, the "pillar-boxing" you get when displaying a standard-size pict
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The Wii has an option in its system setting to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 display modes, so its likly that all or most games support the 16:9 format, at least the native Wii ones, old Gamecube titles and VirtualConsole are of course a different matter.
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The grandparent post was a troll but you, you are something special.
Now if I could just find the "-1: Bigot" mod...
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Quite simply, the 360 and HD are fun, but the Wii looks like it will be better while being cheaper.