Actually I stand by all those points.

- Higher resolution does benefit most any game. It can make a crappy game look cleaner (if you're going to play a crappy game for whatever reason, hey at least the image quality is nice), and it can make great games even greater. Combined with enhanced horse power they allow (most importantly) the best designers and best artists a broader canvas to create more expressive worlds to immerse the player in without less compromise. 

You can see the Dolphin emulator that works on PCs that can take GameCube and Wii titles and run them a HD resolution -- in virtually every case, the game looks noticably better on the emulator, in some cases (like Resident Evil 4) dramatically better. RE4 running at 720p from the GameCube build (no changes in lighting or textures or anything) looks almost like a 360/PS3 game. You can see texture detail that was intended by the artists that wasn't possible to really pick on using the lower resolution. 

- It's quite possible because of cost/performance issues, Blu-Ray or some minor variant on Blu-Ray will end up being the format Nintendo uses because it's a widely manufactured and easily scalable technology. Not a lock, but certainly a fair possibility. 

- Nintendo has said all along that they will offer an HD capable successor to the Wii at some point and that they are not anti-HD from day 1.

You want to argue against those points, be my guest.

"- Higher resolution does benefit most any game. It can make a crappy game look cleaner, and it can make great games even greater."

HD gaming is not just higher resolution. That is upscaling, and PCs have been doing that for years. Furthermore the Zelda picture you showed is clearly not just higher resolution

"It's quite possible because of cost/performance issues, Blu-Ray or some minor variant on Blu-Ray will end up being the format Nintendo uses because it's a widely manufactured and easily scalable technology."

That is not what you were discussing at first. You claimed that blu-ray would be as important for the next system as DVD was for the Wii, based on the format being as popular down the line, which is not what sales and growth of that format are showing.

"- Nintendo has said all along that they will offer an HD capable successor to the Wii at some point and that they are not anti-HD from day 1."

I wasn't denying that. Stop pretending I brought up points I didn't. Argue against my REAL points.

What are your real points again? Sorry I lost track.

And no, my point about Blu-Ray from the beginning is it's quite likely upon researching the options that Nintendo will find that Blu-Ray (like DVD for the Wii), propietary or not, is a good option for several reasons.

One example I'll give is this ... Nintendo with Blu-Ray can go to Panasonic and say "a Chinese manufacture is going to give us $15 a drive for this part, beat that and you have a deal" ... they have leverage and bargaining power with a format that has so many manufacturers.

Some exotic completely propietary format? Probably not. You're stuck with that one supplier. And heaven forbid if they ever start hitting shortages because then you really don't have much of a recourse either. If you're having a problem with one Blu-Ray drive supplier, you can always go elsewhere quite easily. There likely are several Blu-Ray vendors who would love to have a contract from a company like Nintendo and be willing to offer the drive at a very favorable price at that.

"And no, my point about Blu-Ray from the beginning is it's quite likely upon researching the options that Nintendo will find that Blu-Ray (like DVD for the Wii), propietary or not, is a good option for several reasons."

Okay, it just seemed like something else.

"One example I'll give is this ... Nintendo with Blu-Ray can go to Panasonic and say "a Chinese manufacture is going to give us $15 a drive for this part, beat that and you have a deal" ... they have leverage and bargaining power with a format that has so many manufacturers."

I would say reliability would matter at least as much as cost. As in they would stick with vendors that have good reputation.

"Some exotic completely propietary format? Probably not. You're stuck with that one supplier. And heaven forbid if they ever start hitting shortages because then you really don't have much of a recourse either."

They ARE using proprietary formats, but those are NOT the way you are describing. So you are using a strawman alternative (even if unintentionally) to try to make blu-ray look like the only reasonable alternative when that isn't the case.

Dude, lol, you sure love milking that "strawman" line.

I never said Blu-Ray is the only alternative. I said like DVD, it likely will turn out to be the most scalabale, mass market friendly, and financially flexible type of format for Nintendo.

It may not be as sexy as some completely brand new type of format, but it's likely going to be very hard to beat for cost effectiveness, especially when you're talking about a product cycle that goes through say 2013/2014 ... you are talking about a technology that will cost Nintendo peanuts as time goes on.

Personally for me, this is not really a big issue. I would personally want a new system from Nintendo that has higher end, higher resolution visuals, which hopefully brings bigger third party projects like Final Fantasy XIV and say Bayonetta (or its sequel) to the system first and foremost. A better online infastructure would be nice also.

After that, what format the games are on ... quite honestly I could care less if Nintendo uses vinyl records as long as it works for the third party community. Arguing over a format choice is so 1996. As long as it gets the job done and doesn't prevent the system from getting the games it should, I personally don't care. My OPINION from a financial/mass production P.O.V. is Blu-Ray is likely going to be tough to beat.

When you misrepresent an argument, that is what a strawman is. You've been doing it a lot, even if you didn't mean to. That's not milking it. You actually do it.

"I never said Blu-Ray is the only alternative. I said like DVD, it likely will turn out to be the most scalabale, mass market friendly, and financially flexible type of format for Nintendo."

That is still wrong because you are just assuming it will go the same road DVD did. And everyone assumed UMD would be more cost effective than the DS carts. That turned out to be wrong.

But you're right about the actual format mattering less than what works best for the games and developers.

UMD was only made by Sony, Blu-Ray is made by 40-50 different companies that Nintendo can use as a vendor, leverage against each other for cost. It's a technology that today is in laptops, computers, etc. and is a mass market product. 

This would not be the case with a true propietary format. I'm not really seeing any kind of coherent arguement against this point.

You're assuming the proprietary format could only possibly be more expensive, and assuming there would only be one vendor. Furthermore you are assuming that blu-ray support precludes other formats costing less, which is wrong.

Finally you are refusing to consider factors OTHER than cost.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm saying it's probable given the nature of the format that Blu-Ray has a heads up in those areas because of the fact that it's manufactured by dozens of companies.

If you know of another format suitable for a modern console that is comparable other than DVD or CD, please name it.

Cost is a big issue, I don't think that really has to be stated. I never said it was the only one.

You could do a lot worse than Blu-Ray ... cheap, easy to manufacture, probably would be well recieved by third parties, can meet the needs of most any type of game format. 

A lot of the hyseteria against the format seems to stem from the misconception that people believe it's a "Sony format", when it isn't a "Sony format" any more than DVDs are. 

There's nothing wrong with Blu-Ray whatsoever. It would be a great choice for the next Nintendo machine, for the consumer and for Nintendo's bottom line and for manufacturing issues as well. In terms of performance, storage space, and piracy prevention, it's a very nice bang for your buck. 

If they can find a better format than that, so be it. The fact is they're likely going to have to use some kind of disc format comparable to DVD to ensure some level of backwards compatibility anyway. That likely narrows down the options quite a bit. 

But the context of your comment made it seem as though it was the only one. Plus you were claiming that a proprietary format would be too costly compared to bl-ray, which is wrong because we don't know what alternatives are there, and you are not taking into account that cost differential might be at a point where even costing more would not be that big of a deal if the proprietary format met Nintendo's needs more (which would include making games easier for third parties).