You do realise that 95% of the cost of a HD game is not in optimizing the game and is assocated to the costs in producing the 3D content?

The difference between a game like Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo 3 is that for every car/track you're dedicating at least twice as many people to develop the car/track and it is taking them at least twice as long to produce the same car/track; the reason for this is that it takes a lot of people to add the little details that give the game that "Photorealistic" look. Being that you won't be able to see the fine metal brusing on a set of wheels in the Wii version of a racer, you won't need someone to write the pixel shader to create the effect, and you won't need the texture artist to apply the effect to the wheel; when you don't implement dozens of these effects the time savings are amazing.

@nine0nine

I try to stay away from arguements that aren't within my field - but I feel this one is up my ally in a small way. Your post about the difference is all over the place, so I'm going to nail it down as you want to know what the visual difference is to the average joe.

But then you extend the question into an arguement by saying, what do we expect.

First let's answer the question:
Art direction, the Wii can do realistic as well as cartoony and anything else, but can it do them well, the answer given those specs is yes, can it do it at 60fps? the answer again is yes. The thing is the Art direction for the Wii games haven't been exposed as well as they could have.

For the last 15 years developers have been pushing the envelope to reach graphical edge, they have done a fine job at it, the reason you don't see that much of a difference is mainly because when they do give the next push things are going to look real to life, but also your acustomed to the 360 level graphics, should you play a game on the Xbox again in a few years you'll see that they appear dated, that has been the case time in and time out. (The real issue is, can an entire game be done with such graphical push and art style and who could afford that risk.)

Wii owners of that graphic requirement are the same guys who buy SMG, Brawl, Bwii, NMH, RE4 and so on. We expect from 3rd party devs' the same quality with a different art style (or the same) with a great experience (controls, story, and whatever else) to boot.

The problem is that the developers put all of their eggs iin one basket. They decided to develop their big games in high definition. Instead of giving the Wii it's own games made for it fom the ground up, they took the easy way out. They ported PS2 title over to it. It's a lot cheaper and a lot less work. The reason they did this is because at the beginning of the generation the Wii was looked at as a system that was going to be a huge failure. Now that it hasn't turned out that way, the Wii is starting to see more third party support. Games will be built from the ground up with; hold your breath; better graphics.

I think the Wii's plenty powerful to produce a nice looking game. Will it compete with the 360 or PS3 whe they are hooked up to a good HD TV? Nope, but all three systems hooked up to a CRT will produce looks that the average person (i.e non-analretentive gamer) will not likely be able to tell the difference between.

Well of course that a wii game in a HD tv will look "not that good". Is so obvious like BR and DVD's.

PS360 graphics VS Wii graphics are like DVD's VS Blue-Ray

Yes, Blu ray movies look 1000 times better than DVD's and yes, PS360 games look 1000 than wii games

If you watch a BR movie in a standard TV it looks pretty much the same as a normal DVD. If you watch a DVD in a HD TV it looks not-that-good. If you watch a Wii movie in a HD TV...wel, duh.

 In the end, is a silly comparison.

Why? simple: DVD's are made for SD TV's, BR movies are made for HD TV'S.

Wii was designed for SD TV's and PS360 were designed for HD TV's. Pure and simple.

Yet, DVD's can look as good as a BR. Not 100% but very close.

And Wii games can look pretty as good as a PS360 one. Not100% but it can compete.

PS360, like Blu ray were designed as a "luxury". They are cool but unecessary. Wii, like DVD'S were designed for "everyday" use.

The problem is that companies don't even want to do a "good looking DVD" they just copy and paste a VHS tape and record it on a DVD wasting like 90% of its potential. Or in other words, they just copy-paste a PS2 game in a Wii game wasting like 90% of its potential.

So they are lazy. They are greedy. And we shouldn't support them. Is time that developers stop treating Nintendo owners as retards.

Great read mr Grampy to me the only developers who are really putting some effort in the wiis hardware (other than Nintendo) are High Voltage with their own title The Conduit and Factor 5 (after seeing rogue squadron a few years back i was amazed that it was a gc title)

Do you realize that almost all PC games run in greater resolution than SD TV and have been for years? The ps3/360 doesn't make these 3D models more expensive but the developer of GT5 who wants to make it models as realistic as possible does. The ps3 gives the developer the power to do so. Is it really necessary for GT5 to run in 1080p for it to sale? I don't think so.

Unlike PC, the exact oppisite works against the PS3/360. One of the games that could really benefit from HD resolution would be William's "Pinball Hall of Fame" but sadly it only came out for PS2 and Wii. As many here noted, the PS3/360 seems less likely to get by with average graphics (games that doesn't push the console) than the Wii can. So for now the console's stereo types seem to stick, graphic matters a lot when it come to 360/ps3 and not so much when it comes to Wii.

@dib8rman

my point was not really what are you expecting from the wii in that sense,

basically put: the step from xbox 1 to 360 = 15x more 'power'(total guess work here), does it = 15x better graphics? I don't think it does. If the Wii 'only' as 3x the power, the difference in the real world is going to be un-noticable, pretty much how it is.

I think the issue at hand is not just down to developers being lazy, some developers just cannot afford to develop a game for the extended periods the major studios can.

This was one of the points of the wii, to take the focus away from companies having to pump millions into producing a game, when a small dev studio could have a great idea that would get overlooked by the latest, big budget EA trash.

That was then, this was now. Game designers don't have the final say in what the priorities are, stockholders do and that is going to force a sea change in games. With the numbers and momentum that the Wii has, to continue putting all there best people only on PS360 games will be a suicidal act and one that the stock holders will not stand for. Remember that very few if any of those stockholders are gamers or own a console but their grandchildren do and it is most likely not a PS3.

Just because some people seem to not get it, I don't want to compete with PS360. I just want developers to do a good job. And by the by, I'm a graphics professional and I have a fairly critical eye. I'm just not buying the looks like crap on HD.

I have a 42" 1080p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV and I upsample the Wii through the (ironically) Sony AV receiver (component in /HDMI out) and SMG looks pretty damn nice. In part it is probably because of the smoother image of the plasma screen.