This has been discussed to death endless times...I am close to locking it, but it is a legitimate story. If this deteriorates into pointless "Wii is not next-gen" debates or whatever, I'll close it, cause we've gone through this like 3 times now.

So far as I can tell, the lack of programmable shaders shouldn't be a problem if programmers tried using their imaginations and brains a bit. Factor 5 achieved Normal mapping on GC (on the graphics chip) by going into low level machine code.

GC was capable of hardware specularity, environment mapping and bump mapping without any particular coaxing.

Shadow of the colossus either achieved or cleverly faked fur shading, self shadowing, soft shadowing, vector based motion blur, HDR lighting, bloom lighting, a couple of sort of specularity effects, volumetric fog effects, and even a kind of sub-surface-scatter effect, ON THE FREAKING PS2. Sure PS2 had vector units on the CPU, but the GPU didn't even have hardware transform and lighting. My point is, if developers tried, they could do versions of all these effects, and add Normal mapping and depth of field for good measure, on Wii.

As it is, developers are treating Wii like it was an N64. I've heard developers talk about how it's difficult to do environment mapping on Wii. NINTENDO DID IT ON THE FIRST N64 GAME!! EA said it was impossible to do Inverse Kinematic type animations until Xbox 360 came along. NINTENDO DID IT ON WAVERACE 64!

Like all the problems with Wii games to date, I put the current limits of displayed graphics down to laziness. Wii doesn't appear to be less powerful than Xbox on any particular part. It just seems to be less flexible (read: developers can't use their basic lines of shader code without thinking).

I have to add that the N64 was built to be heavily programmable. Unfortunately, that programming was mainly used for getting around buses that were too slow or too small. Also, I don't think Mario 64 had normal mapping. It had trilinear mapping, but that's a different effect than normal mapping, which is a more advanced version of bump mapping (in that it has a full color overlay to simulate a rough surface, instead of monochrome overlay).

As for the Wii, I'd like to know what it's processor can do. Most of the shading and mapping on the PS2 was thanks to its processor, and the Wii has those five exocution units. What to they do? Also, did the GC have programmable shading? If it didn't, it didn't seem to hurt its graphics.

 As far as I know the TEV unit in the GC and Wii has the power to reproduce many of the shaders of the original xbox, but the effects required a different approach.

But in the end I agree, games created especially for the Wii can look great (And no, not that great as PS3 360)

 I would compare it to Team Ninja's comments on the PS3. If developers re complaining, they are basically excusing their shoddy work. And they just started on the Wii, even though it's close to the GC. Then again, few developers did much work on the GC.

 Basically, they need to keep at it like the PS3. They had trouble with the PS2 at first, but once they got used to it, the games were great.

 Now if the complaints are still there after a couple years, like the N64, that would be due to architecture flaws, and the complaints would be legit. 

kber81 said: Next-gen? Busted !

yes. next-gen as in the next console after gamecube (the previous one).

yes. it's as simple as that.

kber81 said: Next-gen? Busted !

yes. next-gen as in the next console after gamecube (the previous one).

yes. it's as simple as that.

Current gen is what ever is released this generation, graphical capabilities are really something determined after the fact, and as long as the Wii isn't weaker than anything in the last gen, I suppose even the Wii-haters can consider it this gen by whatever narrow margin you can attribute to it. The only problem with the Wii now is the graphically inferior PS2 ports and mini-games that do precious little to showcase even half of what the GC was capable of much ales what the Wii has to offer. It's hard to convince people the Wii is as formidable as what it deserves when all it has to showcase are graphically mediocre games irregardless what platform they're on.

Though from the perspective of economy you could argue the PS3 and 360 aren't true members of this generation either as to achieve their graphics they had to double the standard console cost from $200-$300 to $400-$600. But that is a can of worms in itself.

Haha I love people who say Wii isn't next gen or current gen. Haha seriously that desscribes generations. Wii is 7th generation haha. How can it not be in the current generation. At least put the quotations around cause next gen and current gen and last generation describes generations not the stereotypical thought of what a console should be. Put the damn quotations around. It makes a difference.

Either way the main thing that makes a console "next gen" is upgrading from the predecessor. Personally I think Wii is a larger upgrade than the rest.

Graphically? No.

Inovatively? Yes. Where as Sony and MS just built better mouse traps at the cost of the consumer, Nintendo actually made a console that was far more appealing in what it could do rather than what untested snake oil technology it boasted. How else could Nintendo have gone from the Gamecube (their worst selling main console ever) to the Wii (their best selling main console ever).