Wii Looks Better Than You Think

Relatively underpowered it may be, but that doesn't mean Wii games won't look pretty.

When Nintendo's Satoru Iwata told Japanese tech site Tech-On recently that Nintendo was not crafting the Wii as a next-generation system, few were surprised. Nintendo has said all along that it's not out to compete with Sony and Microsoft for raw power. Still, recent comments from graphics chip maker ATi suggest the Wii may be more capable than we think.

Wii will say "Wow"?

The first real showing for the Wii was at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and while the games shown looked better than GameCube games, they were far from the lofty heights being scaled by the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

But according to ATi, the maker of the Hollywood graphics chip powering the Wii, what we've seen isn't representative of what the system can do.

"I think what you saw [on Wii] was just the tip of the iceberg of what the Hollywood chip can bring to the Nintendo Wii," ATi's John Swinimer told news site GameDaily.

Having said that, though, Swinimer refused to be goaded into saying more about the visuals, preferring instead to stick to Nintendo's party line, that graphics are secondary to fun for the Wii.

"I really don't think," he said, "that it's about the [hardware specifications]; I think it's about the innovation that it brings to the table - the motion-sensing, the always-on capability, which is really cool too - the fact that the chip is powerful enough and responsive enough to be there at a moment's notice, and I think that's pretty cool for the average gamer."

Nintendo is still mulling final release details for the Wii, though we know that it's coming this autumn.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games