I'm not missing that part at all, I'm perfectly fine with Wii versions of 360 games looking inferior, it's the games underneath the graphics I'm interested in. At the end of the day D3 & HL2 were critical successes on Xbox regardless of their comparitive shortcoming in the visuals area. If it was of importance to me to have top drawer graphics I wouldn't have a Wii in the first place.

Well, this is a nice little thread.

First of all, the Wii can run some PS3/360 games. Even with their native engine. Now that's not saying much becuase some developers just shouldnt make games. Alot of the time you see something so similar is when you see the game designed for the PS2, ported to the Wii, PS3, 360. In the future I think we will see less multiplatform games spanning PS3/360 and Wii. This generation is gonna do something diffrent from every other generation, and the 'true' exclusives are almost gone. Companies have learned that they make more money from multiplatform, and the GPU on the PS3/360 are quite smilar in terms of how to optimize that, the CPU is the one that is going to take the time. Once the CPU for the PS3 gets mastered, I think almost every game will be PS3/360 or Wii. So yes that means the Wii gets alot of true 'exclusives'. While the PS3/360 dont get any exclusives. But, the PS3/360 will have a healther number of AAA titles. (at least for the next 18 months)

The Wii cant play PS3 games, and the Wii cant play 360 games. The CPU in the PS3 is probibally faster than the entire Wii, and the GPU in the PS3 is, I'm quite sure, faster than the entre Wii. The 360's GPU is also faster than the entire Wii. That is a MASSIVE power diffrence, not to mention the 5x more memory!

The reason a PC game has such high requirements compared to what it can be played on a console is, becuase you can 'optimize' a console. Overall PC games are not optimized like a console game. They are made to work, and run. A Console game's entire development cycle is designed for specific hardware. It does NOT need conpatability. It does not need to work on other hardware. It does not need to run on slower hardware. It needs to run perfect, on what it is given.

I would say a Console gets at least 3x more power out of 'said hardware' than a computer.

Here's my point. A optimized PS3/360 game, will never run on a Wii. I do not consider launch games optimized. There are very few optimized games on the market right now for PS3/360 so far, This year is the big one for both 360/PS3.

1) I assume that's where Rockstar's TT comes in, though I'd say Rockstar generally knows how to push hardware.

2) Though you have to admit that a game like RE4 which was specifically designed and optomised for GC was successfully ported to the PS2. I realise there is a much smaller gap in hardware capability but it still proves an obstacle to your point.

Overall I understand what you are saying and won't disagree as I'm not a techie but from what you've written would it be fair to claim that Wii could potentially run software released on 360/PS3 which doesn't use a substantial portion of the hardware?

1) I'm not sure what to say to this. :o
2) The PS2 had roughly 75% the power of the Wii. The Wii and the PS2 are MUCH closer in hardware than PS3/Wii. Basically it would be quite a bit easier to port a game from Wii to PS2, than it would be PS3/Wii.  I also want to point out, that RE4 for the PS2 looked horrible compared to the GameCube version. Like mentioned about the PC to X-Box games, they killed the graphics to move the game.

It really depends, due to the Wii's limited memory, CPU, and GPU, it's really questionable as to if a 'real' HD game, even if it's not optimized, would work on the Wii. I mean I'm sure it will happen from time to time, but the question is, will the result be desireable. A good example of what I mean is, Dead Rising. One of the first X-box 360 games. Could it work on the Wii? Yeah, if you hack the graphics WAAY down, Spend close to a million dollars re-optimizing the graphics, (to do a RE4 style texture type). And then yes, Dead Rising would be possible on the Wii. However you could have built the game from near scracth in the cost it cost to port it. Without re-mastering the textures, the game would be next to un-playable, due to the lack of shader paths.

Also, in refrence to the shader-paths. The PS3/360 renders a image with almost 100 'layers' While the Wii maxes out at 8. Thus, makeing it impossible to draw the same image, even if they could somehow run the game on the Wii hardware. That is going to be the biggest hurdle for the Wii this time around, becuase Unlike the PS2/GC/X-box, where all 3 of them had similar rendering methods, The Wii, is also similar. While the 360/PS3 is not. That is what is going to hurt it the most, possibly even more than the lack of power. 

That right there proves you have no idea what you're talking about, and that I can safely ignore everything else you said.  The PS2 might have been 75% of a gamecube, and the Wii is easily twice a gamecube, making PS2 37.5% of a Wii.

The power gap is greater than you realize.  This will become evident in the coming months.  Shovelware never pushes the hardware boundaries.

Yes. So the PS2 is ~37.5% of a Wii, while the PS3 is 16x faster than the PS2, so that makes the the Wii 25% the speed of a PS3, so the Wii is closer to the PS2. Thank you for your criticisim. You showed me, that I didnt explain it well enough.

EDIT: If I translate your numbers, into my logic, I'm still right for what I say, and that means I have a better idea of what I'm saying than you, it would probibally be in your best intrest to not ignore me! 

Do you mean that you don't understand what I've written or you can't explain how a 360 game is being put on to Wii?

Anyway I appreciate your input. We'll see if what you say turns out to be the case long term as the impetus for devs to port games to the Wii from 360/PS3 grows by the day as Wii continues to expand it's marketshare. Maybe one or two will surprise everyone?

 Hopefully! :D

(it's funny, everyone seems to think I hate the Wii, but I just love epic, worlds created in games, with traditional gameplay. The wii has so little of that it makes me sick to think I will loose out on that much gameplay. Also, the thought of going from, Oblivion, to Morrowind graphics agian, makes me sick as well. But I have a Wii, and I like great games, even if they dont look great. Okami, wouldnt look much better on a PS3, or hell, even a PS4. HD might have effected it, but it was art. The Wii needs more stuff graphically like that. 

You always pull these numbers out of "somewhere" ...

Until you can prove you have a clue what you're talking about can you please stop making claims about things you have no understanding of?

The most impressive aspect of Gears of War is its graphics, so if you downgrade those you could in theory make a version for the Wii and also PSP. But then the focuss would be more on the subpar story telling, game lenght, bad acting, lack of varierty, etc. (IMO Gears overall is overrated, IMO due to its good graphics).

Other games like Lair IMO won't be possible by just downgrading the graphics and sound, there's too much going on at once in this huge virual world. It wouldn't be just an immense downgrade, it would have to become a different game altogether like many Nintendo DS versions of PS2/PSP games have become.