Fans have been crying out for Nintendo to embrace HD for years. There have been grassroots campaigns organized around the issue. Rumors that the Wii would get a high-def hardware revision. Emulators programmed to take the issue out of the company's hands, then used to fill Internet forums with images of what could have been.
And now, at long last, Wii U has arrived – and Nintendo's finally using the number 1080 without the word "snowboarding" immediately following it.
There's been quite a bit of confusion surrounding this long-awaited upgrade, though, so we're bringing together all the facts and specs about Wii U's visual abilities here in one spot. What kind of HD will it really support? How many p's and how many i's? And what impact will the new GamePad controller – with its own, separate screen to fill – have on what's being displayed up on our fancy TVs?
Let's dive in.
First up, let's review the official figures supplied via the company's press materials. Consulting Nintendo's E3 website or the PDF packed alongside the myriad screenshots and promotional art pieces for upcoming games, we find two concise statements listed for Video Output:
Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, Wii D-Terminal, Wii Component Video, Wii RGB, Wii S-Video Stereo AV and Wii AV.
Simple enough. Wii U will work with just about every kind of video cable on sale at Radio Shack, and it'll output pretty much every resolution worth talking about. There's 480i for standard-defintion legacy content. There's 480p for those older Wii games that supported progressive scan. And then the three flavors of high definition – 720p, 1080i and 1080p.
This, though, is where some confusion is creeping in and some fans are starting to question Nintendo once again – because though output of up to 1080p is supported by the hardware, that doesn't necessarily mean that every game is going to hit that highest mark of high definition.
Nintendo fansite Wii U Daily published a story yesterday that claimed the system's launch titles will only run in 720p. That's still technically high definition, but it's not 1080, and the difference has been enough to upset some videophiles already.
The report has yet to be substantiated elsewhere by Nintendo, but if it is true then it wouldn't be all that surprising – titles like New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendo Land and Pikmin 3 could only be hitting 720p as a result of the system being so new. Nintendo is just now creeping its way out of standard definition gaming, after all. It's understandable if the transition takes smaller steps instead the biggest leap possible right away.
Native resolution is only one area to consider in discussing Wii U's visual capabilities. Another is frame rate. The same Wii U Daily article also claimed that not all titles will achieve the ideal rate of 60 frames per second. Pikmin 3 was listed as one that will, but we're left to wonder about any of the others.
This might be another area not to get to upset about so soon, but slower frame rates were actually a topic that came up during Tuesday evening's Developer Discussion event. Nintendo's Takashi Tezuka and Katsuya Eguchi were asked what technical hurdles they had to overcome in order to get two Wii U GamePads working with the system simultaneously, and they admitted that system performance will take a hit when such a configuration is used. Frame rate could be cut in half.
That's a tough fact for video-attuned fans to be hit with, but once again it makes sense – we've never had a video game console streaming constant content to a second screen placed across the room before, and tossing a third screen into that mix is definitely going to put a strain on things. Even the most untechnical of us should be able to understand that.
All that said, there's still plenty we don't yet know. We haven't received official confirmation from Nintendo about anything other than the two simple sentences in the press materials – Wii U Daily's report was from the mouth of a single company rep on the show floor, and even Mr. Tezuka and Mr. Eguchi were just offering their opinions of the system's capabilities, not hard facts. We'll have to wait to get firm information until closer to launch, or perhaps after.
There are other questions the fans want Nintendo to address regarding Wii U's visuals, too – like what happens with legacy content? We do already know that Wii games will not be upscaled to HD when running on a Wii U. So that question's answered. But what about playing them on the GamePad screen? Will we be able to enjoy Super Mario Galaxy or the original Wii Fit in our hands while the TV is tuned to Game of Thrones?
And what about the downloadable titles? Nintendo has confirmed that we'll be able to move our Wii saves, Virtual Consoles games and WiiWare titles onto the Wii U, but will those older games programmed with the original Wii in mind be able to be shifted to the palms of our hands? If so, it means classics like Super Metroid, Mario Kart 64 and Mega Man 2 could gain pseudo-portability for the first time. If not, well, it'll be another missed opportunity to please we somewhat stubborn fans.
How about those many different video cable options? This will be the first Nintendo system to support some those types. Will there be an official HDMI cable released by Nintendo? Will the same cables used for the Wii work for the Wii U, if consumers aren't concerned about upgrading their wiring? And which kind, if any, will be packaged in the box with new Wii U systems? If there's no cable bundled in and we need to make a separate purchase, we'll want to know that ahead of time.
So while we now know a handful of facts about the Wii U's visual abilities, there are still quite a few unknowns hovering around here at the end of the expo that supposedly revealed the system in full. It's an unfinished topic for sure, so we'll revisit this article as more details become available through the weeks and months ahead. Feel free to add your own questions via the comments box below, then stay tuned all the way through to November and beyond.
Source : ign[dot]com
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