Is this even a possibility from a tech perspective?

Could there be a wii hd add-on?

With USB, anything's possible from a technical perspective. There are other reasons why it wouldn't 'work', though.

The Genesis's various add-ons were big contributors in Sega's being forced to exist the console business.

I disagree about Sega.

Sega released those add-ons as a response to the fact that Nintendo was outselling them.

It's not like Sega was kicking Nintendo in the rear, and then released the add-ons, and then lost.

You're partially correct, but the add-ons were released to hold people over until the DreamCast came out. But all the expensive add-ons confused people, turning many of them away from the DreamCast.

*facepalm*

*headdesk*

There will be no HD USB add-on, USB2 provides nowhere near enough bandwidth for a GPU or a CPU.

The Wii is what it is, and will continue to be what it is. There will be no add-on that magically turns your Wii into a PS3. Get over it.

I'm not sure there's any place to plug an upgrade in, but frankly, none is necessary. The closest thing there will ever be to a "Wii HD" is a dedicated upscaler, and that's all there needs to be.

This is not to say that there won't eventually be a successor system, of course. There always is. But it will be a new system, not a hardware refresh.

fixed

The SNES, N64 and Gamecube were designed with the intention of releasing add-ons after the fact (SNES-CD, N64 Memory Expansion pack, N64-DD, GBA Player, Modem/Broadband Adapter, etc) but few were ever released worldwide; and none were particularly popular. The Wii was designed to be a much more feature complete system, and most of the functionality I would expect Nintendo to add would be through software updates or new controllers. From a technical perspective there are things that could be done through USB, but nothing which would have much of an impact on hardware performance because the bandwith of USB simply isn't high enough.

Upscaling isn't the same thing as actually having the textures designed with high definition in mind from the beginning, I believe.

Sony has a similar motion control coming out and better features. The price of sony's machine will drop. Nintendo doesn't want to get rid of the wii, because it has a chance to become the best selling home console of all time. I don't think it is out of the question to think that Nintendo may somehow update the wii, with games that are hd if you have the upgrade but still work in low resolution if you don't.

I agree that right now it is unnecessary. Nintendo has its blue ocean and can stick to that.

But Sony and MS are planning to turn that blue ocean red. At that point, I'd like to see Nintendo's response.