Move to HD is likely, says Nintendo
"We cannot swim against the tide."
Nintendo's top execs have confirmed the company is looking at moving into high-definition gaming, suggesting such a shift is inevitable.
"We probably cannot swim against the tide," said Shigeru Miyamoto, speaking during a recent press conference. "The customers' tastes will become more and more refined. Even today, many customers who have seen HD once say they cannot go back to SD... When the majority of people around us say it is OK, we are content with the situation."
But a move to HD will incur an increase in development costs, observed Miyamoto - which means it will come down to the type of software developers are producing. "For example, we have to ask ourselves if HD is really necessary to develop Wii Fit. Won't HD be better for the games like Pikmin? The developers should choose the most appropriate graphical format depending on the software they make."
R&D manager Genyo Takeda said his department has been looking into "many different things, including HD and SD". He said they're not in a position to make any announcements yet, but things are heading in a HD direction.
"Since an increasing number of the TV sets at home around the world are becoming HD today, it will be natural for a machine to be able to generate graphics that people will be accustomed to see on HD televisions," Takeda said. "Since the ordinary TV programs are now shifting to HD, moving to HD appears to me a natural flow."
Marketing exec Shinji Hatano added, "If 24 kilo bytes of NES software can fit into 200cc tea cup, you will need enough water to fill a 25 meter swimming pool in order to make full use of a PS3 disc because the memory size of a game software has increased 2.25 million times as large as an early NES game." Thanks for that.