Wii's Graphics - What's All The Fuss About?

"It's about as powerful as the original Xbox. The video hardware unfortunately is not as powerful. There's just a couple of key things that you can do on Xbox like shaders which you just cannot do on the Wii." - Tim Tschirner in a recent interview with Eurogamer for the Wii version of FIFA 08

Of course, this fairly innocuous statement about Wii's visual capabilities caused half the internet to blow up.

[Dr Pepper]

I like gameplay, but that gameplay is enhanced when you get amazing graphics/visuals to go along with it. Both are very important.

[Xi]

good graphics makes the came more immersing. The more captivating the visuals the more you can get into the game.

[Diselage]

The visuals of the Wii though are enough to get most people by for the most part, it's not like it's n64 here where you think your eyes are going to bleed from the graphics.

[Xi]

but the strength of a system isn't just dependent on the graphics, but graphics can offer new challenges, and gameplay, usually, it means the the system in a whole can't do as much. Half life 2 for example, many of the problem solving in the game was dependent on the physics engine, and with the wii, some of those features may not be present. Look at a game like hydrophobic, the water calculations and puzzles that require the water probably can't be done on the wii. So to me, the wii will take away from what some games could be.

[Marceles]

I got a bunch of disagrees on the last article about this and one guy said the new Metroid couldn't be played on Xbox 1 which i still don't believe it true...but i guess they were alot of Wii fanboys. But I agree with Diselage...the gameplay is most important as long as the graphics aren't hideous

[ChickeyCantor]

There are things the Ati GPU can do which cant be done on the Nvidia and there are things the Nvidia GPU in the xbox1 can do which cant be done by the ATI inside the Wii.

[Shaka2K6]

Not as powerfull as the xbox but they still charge $250 for that junk with not decent online play.

Rip-OFF!!!!!!!!!!

[original seed]

just thought id let you know.

[M_Prime]

i was gonna give u a BUBBLE but then i read ur comment..

Dude.. online is coming.. and u make the $250 sound like a BAD THING.. i'm sure that if the PS3 was $250 then the WII would be dead in the water.. but its not so the pricepoint is a very good reason to buy the wii.. even without HD graphics.. but then again it has a cool wand

[Odiah]

I have my imagination!

<lame>

[StateofMind]

Come on guys it doesn't matter. The Wii may not live up to last-gen technology, have online play, or a decent software lineup...but it does have a new controller! This obviously makes it the funnest console ever made.

[drtysouf21]

Though the Wii can be fun i still wish it had the graphics of PS3 and 360.

[M_Prime]

okay the good looking stuff is COMING..

i just got SCARFACE and we all know its PS2/PC/XBOX1 but i haven't played it so its my first time on the wii and let me tell you.. I love it.. graphically its pretty good for a sandbox game.. and gameplay is there (u all prolly already know that).. it looks better then GTA:SA but prolly not as polished as GODFATHER:BLACKHAND but the maps and gameplay are so much better and i never saw the XBOX version but everyone is saying this looks better.. and prolly because the DEVS actually took their time to shine it up and get the controls spot on.

i almost never use the AUTOAIM.. i am mostly in manual aim mode, even when in vehicles. with the pointer it makes it so smooth and easy to do.. so instead of a right thumbstick to aim you aim with the wiimote and it makes a world of difference and its done quite well i must say.. aiming was the only thing that bugged me in GTA on XBOX and PS2 thats why i played all of them on my PC so i can mouse aim..

so i would say even though SCARFACE is an older title by our standards it was not shoveled onto the wii and does a pretty good job, actually a really good job showing what a lil effort can accomplish..

and as the aricle states.. by XMAS we will have VISUALS we can actually be defensive about..

SIDE NOTE.. THERE IS NO WORSE GAME ON WII THEN FARCRY VENGENCE, I CAN'T BELIVE I BOUGHT IT. (ITS BAD IN ALL ASPECTS and a perfect example of SHOVELWARE) most video game store will offer me like $2 for it.. i shoulda taken $20 when i was offered in the first week it was out..

[ChickeyCantor]

Scarface was still the most best looking version......

E3 might teach us more.

[ItsDubC]

It's safe to say that most ppl on this site will choose graphics over an innovative control scheme. Someone mentioned above that good graphics provide for a more immersive game, but I think a properly-implemented control scheme on the Wii could provide a level of immersiveness in a game that simply cannot be achieved by ANY degree of graphic realism. I'm not saying that there are games out there that exemplify this right now, but that the possibility exists.

It's similar but not as extreme as the difference in degree of interaction between watching a movie and playing a videogame; the movie looks far more realistic but the videogame is often much more appealing because it offers more user-interaction. The Wii provides potential for games to graduate from button-pressing interaction (which, frankly, is the way it's been since the dawn of gaming) to something more involving, modern, and intuitive. It's understandably difficult for ppl to accept a new way of videogame interaction when they've been pressing buttons to control games since the first time they picked up videogames.

The Wii is and will continue to have a tough time convincing many avid gamers that the new control scheme is a viable successor to commonplace button-pressing.

Any Wii criticism will inevitably boil down to its graphics capabilities. But look at how different the Wii's game library already is from that of the PS3 and 360. Almost every game made for the PS3/360 aims to produce a certain degree of graphical realism because that's what consumers of those consoles expect. When ppl throw down $300+, they expect games to LOOK worthy of that money spent. But this alienates a lot of developers and game genres. Does anyone really think that Big Brain Academy for the Wii would be a better game if it had better graphics? Would Paper Mario even be the same game if it forewent it's current artistic style in favor of graphical realism? Those games don't meet most PS3/360 owners' graphical expectations and therefore would not be nearly as successful on those consoles.

The $250 Wii is not for those who want every single one of their games to look realistic. Only so many game genres are suited to this graphical style. The Wii aims to expand the market and as such, its graphics are "good enough" to allow for those realistc-looking games that many gamers want, while simultaneously keeping its price low enough to appeal to those who do not care for these types of games (which, as we're starting to see, may in fact be the majority).

[ChickeyCantor]

Agree.
=|=)=D