Why readily discounting Wii graphics can actually hinder their potential


I’ve got a bone to pick with EA and/or third-party Wii developers in general. Perhaps even Nintendo. There have been some really poopsky looking Wii games up to this point because the entire Nintendo community — including developers — readily discount Wii’s graphics potential. Yes, they are inferior when compared to the competition, but that shouldn’t give developers a good excuse not to optimize the system’s aesthetics. By doing so, consumers get “ripped off” in the process. I understand the initial R&D focus of Wii games has been on the controls, and rightfully so. But there’s no excuse for the many GameCube 1.0 graphics gracing the face of several Wii games today. We paid for a GameCube 1.5, right? 🙂 Where’s the extra .5 effort?

So developers: take a little extra time to go above and beyond in the graphics department. Granted, I’ll opt to play PC, PS3, or 360 if I’m jonesing for some HD graphics, but I just want to know that you are pushing the envelope on Wii. Software has always been ahead of hardware in terms of scalability, so there’s no reason you can’t do more (both artistically and realistically) with the console’s visuals. Just because the DS uses a 10 year-old graphics engine, doesn’t mean I want developers to quit tweaking the looks. And there are some fine looking DS games. We should expect nothing less on Wii, or any platform for that matter.