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Satoru Iwata has said that there is currently no reason to make an HD compatible version of the Wii console, saying such an iteration would have no 'significant meaning' to users.

Despite speculative reports to the contrary, the Nintendo President told Venturebeat 'As far as the Wii is concerned, we have not found a significant reason to make it HD-compatible at this time. What is the significant meaning to the users? I don't think we should do it unless we find that reason.'

An HD Wii was heavily rumoured last October, and industry analysts have been confident that such hardware was imminent.

An HD Nintendo console is inevitable, however, with Iwata going onto say, 'If we decide for other reasons to make new hardware, then HD is one of the things we would naturally add.'

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As market leader, Nintendo won't need a new console until MS and Sony put one out. However, its nice to see Nintendo knows HD is a must for next gen. That makes sense as by 2012, HD will surely be in nearly all homes, if not all.

This was pretty obvious? Why would Nintendo pick up competitors' features when competitors aren't selling as much and aren't very profitable?

HD is very overrated. I have played Killzone 2 on a 50 inch and then Metroid Prime 3 on the same TV, still preferd MP3

so, Michael Pachter was wrong.... again. Nothing new.
realising a Wii with HD output (with the same hardware) would be pointless. I don't need to watch Mii's in 1080p ;\

@melbye

I think it would have more to do with the actual game to determine if HD was preferred. I would think that most realism based games would benefit from the graphical enhancements.

Plus, you probably preferred MP3 due to the actual game and controls, nothing to do with graphics.

That's probably down to art style then. It can have a significant impact and is too often overlooked by developers I feel.

People overrate HD. It's an arbitrary number. It's not like there's a set resolution where our eyes are like "oh, SHIT!! Now that's high definition!". It's nice, I guess, but I honestly don't give a damn about HD and, being the largely ascetic guy I am, probably never will.

I remember when we thought the SNES 3d games, N64, and PS1 had good graphics XP

Like Scoobes said, it's about artistry, not technical power.

I've taken to using the term 'presentation' instead of 'graphics,' because I feel it encompasses all aesthetic qualities of a game, rather than focusing on just art, graphics, or animations. The whole is more relevant than the components.

The only problem with this is that the beauty of art is very subjective, while graphics and animation are more objective attributes. I think Killzone 2 looks like ass, but a lot of people might dig that gritty hellscape.

I agree that it's greatly overrated in gaming, but - just for information - there actually is a critical resolution based on the biology of human eyes.

Depending on how good your sight is, the size of the screen and the distance from which you're looking at the image, it would be the resolution so high that pixels are of the same size of the human eye's angular resolution (about 1'). Any higher resolution would be pratically useless because your eye would see neighbouring pixels as a single dot.

For a 42 inches screen watched from 2.5 meters this limit is slightly higher than 720p - unless I botched my calculations :) Bigger screen or closer distance, and the limit is higher.

If your sight is not 20/20, it's probably lower :)

@ringo

I do agree about considering the whole presentation. For example I value animations so much that I cringe at the screenshot frenzy of some people.

Just one remark though, it's not like a piece of art has to be pleasant or beautiful in a strict sense... its goal could be exactly to transmit desperation, depression, even madness (I loved Shadowman, back in the days)