I think this is the main point to this discussion. It may be easier if you could quantify what it means exactly to "push the hardware", but at the end of the day we all know the difference between a game that tried to look its best and one that didn't. This isn't just about polygon counts or number of shaders implemented, it's about the overall impression you get when seeing the game for the first time, and what that implies about the effort that went behind making it.

When the best looking 3rd party games on Wii can't match the quality of the best Gamecbe games, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you somethings wrong.

If you look at the link provided by curl-6, I think Eggebrecht sums it up nicely - there are indeed compatability issues that would prevent every engine from being ported over, but given the success of the system you'd expect at least some companies to want to push the hardware in order to differentiate themselves from the crowd... but I guess that kind of logic is SO 2007

Its not made up. It was a combination two simple terms to convey the magnitude of the feature to people who lack technical knolwedge. More people will understand what I am explaining to them when I use the words "super" and "mode" than when I say Turbo3D microcode. They do not know what that is and aren't likely to look for it. Saying it will not enlighten them at all as a esult. I do not need to explain it to myself and I do not need to explain it to the few people who do know what it is. Those who want to know the details of it can research it themsleves.

I do not need you to explain to me why it was and wasn't used. I already know. I wasn't asking. I was talking to the people who "don't" know.

I'm not talking about added features. I'm talking about the core unit. How many times have I had to repeat this? If you want to get into using bigger and newer hardware componants or replacing the default instruction set then you are leaving the realm of the core system. If you want to get that technical, we can go into soldering stronger components unto the motherboard, reprogramming the bios and and increasing the number of pins in the controller sockets.

You are splitting hairs and begging the question into oblivion to prove your point, but the point has been off from the moment you talked about any alteration to the provided hardware and its base set of instructions. That is in an entirely different realm then what we are getting at in this thread. We are talking about the max that can be achieved by the system as is.

The main point of this thread is that we have yet to see a Wii game that pushed more polygons and shader effects than Rebel Strike on the Gamecube. I'm not going to argue about the N64 with you.

Nothing, absolutely NOTHING to cry over. BLAME NINTENDO DAMNIT. 

This is all such wishful thinking. The HD twins surpassed the Wii in marketshare from the get-go. The businesses had their business models shaped around the promise of the PS3, not the GC's successor. The Wii was a HUGE business risk and 3rd parties were not ready to invest on the platform. Fast-forward 2-3 years when the Wii proved itself, here is what you have:

1) Their legwork is already done on the HD twins, and their market is established.

2) The Wii market is now shaped to look for non-gamer and casual experiences, NOT the type of consumer that is looking for cutting edge necessarily.

I mean, I know there are people that like both approachable games and high-end graphics such as Smash Bros and Mario Galaxy. But that was not a very big market this gen. Hopefully gen8 Nintendo will be able to lead the pack as 3rd parties are more ready to embrace them as a manufacturer, but to expect people to max out the Wii is tremendously counter-market! Yes, there were exceptions as there should naturally have been (Capcom, Monolith, which is 1st party, Nintendo), but that was the nature of this gen and the product of Nintendo's low-end disruption strategy and poor 3rd party relations.

Nothing, absolutely NOTHING to cry over. BLAME NINTENDO DAMNIT. And If you're gonna ask "Youman, bro?", the answer is YES I AM. I am damn ennerved by the sheer denial on this forum, plain and simple. Nintendo made a mistake, call it! Don't start asking for the unexpectable.

I expect Nintendo to regain its place in the market, but that is something possible, something I believe that if they make their wrongs right again, they will succeed. To blame 3rd parties is to miss where the true problem lies, and it was in Nintendo's horrible 3rd party past. They needed a gen to fix that, now it's time for the future. Call in the WiiU.

You know what? If Nintendo needed to scrap high-end this gen so as to become #1 on a manufacturer basis and kick ass gen 8, then bring it on.

I don't think we are in disagreement here. I definitely agree that Nintendo could have done much more to avoid this situation, if not at the hardware planning stage then at the very least with more support of developers like Factor 5, who had the knowledge and will to make good looking games on Wii.

Personally if I had to change one thing, it would have been to add motion plus to the console from day one, assuming that was technically possible. People were obviously willing to pay a bit more for a Wii during its first 2 years on the market, and having accurate motion recognition right out of the box would have made the device seem less like a "fad" that can be dismissed until it's no longer possible to ignore it.

But let me ask you this: if factor 5 can pump out a game like Rougue Squadron in a single year with such a small team, doesn't that mean that perhaps it's not the most insanely difficult thing to do? It seems to be far more difficult to maximize the performance of PS3 games, which Eggebrecht learned the hard way, along with others like Free Radical.
And it didn't take 3 years to realize the Wii would be a success, the writing was on the wall by the end of year one, even if Nintendo themselves were too blind to see it and run with it full speed. The fact that they didn't fully capitalize on their own success could have been seen as a blessing if you are a clever CEO of a 3rd party developer.

It's true that even a clever CEO might have trouble convincing the board of directors or shareholders to invest heavily in Nintendo, considering they have previously been either a hostile territory or an unknown. Nobody is arguing against that. This thread is more about lamenting over missed oportunities than pointing fingers at any particular culprit. But I do agree 100% Nintendo are just as responsible as anybody else. Personally I think it has to do with the man in charge of the company being too inexperienced to recognize what he had on his hands at an early stage.

You know what? If Nintendo needed to scrap high-end this gen so as to become #1 on a manufacturer basis and kick ass gen 8, then bring it on.

If this is indeed how it ends up playing out, then once again we are in agreement. Nintendo will have stockpiled loads of cash from their earnings this gen while simultaniously proving to the industry that they can't be ignored.

It's just that I'm worried about what will happen if that scenario doesn't play out. Just look at Sony between PS2 and PS3.. In this case Nintendo will have effectively let the boat sail. That's what makes me mad, if in retrospect it is apparent they let a good thing go.

That may possibly be true with other consoles but not with the Dreamcast. Yu Suzuki had the devs do things that had never been done before in gaming ever with Shenmue. Some of those things were not even thought to be technically possible for the system like the stretching and bending of the phone cord in Shenmue 2 that was used only once.

Yu Suzuki made them get as much out of the system towards his intended ideal design as they could. Not all could be done, but they pushed it as close as they could.

Doom3 and Half-life 2 had to be reuilt slightly for the Xbox because it was not strong enough to handle the straight versions of the games. They reoptimzed the games to get them on the Xbox 1 as accurately as they possibly could. Lighting, shadows, normal mapping and physics on a level that was never seen on a console before were implemented. You tell that Doom 3 hit the max of the Xbox 1 by the frame rate.