i know i didn't post for some time - i just stopped posting because of the many flamewars here. anyway i visit this website every day :) here's my technical question: i have an old TV. can i say Wii games like Metroid have better graphics on SDTV because the Wii games are optimized for Non-HD Television ? compared to a PS3 game on SDTV the same game should look better on the Wii ? what do you think ? anyone here who tried/compared it ?

you missunderstood - i asked how it is with an "old TV"

is the same game on an old TV on the Wii better than on PS3 - this was the question.

Well as far as i know, generally there is much less difference betwen PS3/360 and Wii when using an old TV, but the more powerful machines will still have an advantage being able to put more detail into stuff and better character models etc.
Some of the really small details though may not look right on an SDTV, i think some people have been complaining some text in PS3/360 games is difficult to make out without the extra pixels

No...PS3 and 360 still look considerably better than Wii games on old TVs. The gap just isn't as big because the resolutions are lower. All the bump mapping, shaders, particles, you name it still exist.

Great looking Wii games like Mario Galaxy could certainly look better to many than lower-end 360 games though.

The games won't have "better" graphics. You just won't be missing out on any detail as you would with a PS3/360 game on that same TV.

Widescreen 480p does look nice, but the difference between that and 480i is much smaller than the difference between 720p/1080i/1080p and 480i.

Well I think the PS3 has an edge in old tvs too. I mean think of it as the previous generation where Xbox had an edge over PS2 in old tvs because it was more powerful. same case with the PS3 compared to wii.

Actually, watching native SD video of any sort tends to look more muddied on HDTVs than on native SDTVs. This is likely due more to the difference in observable quality between CRTs (which most SDTVs are) and LCD/Plasma/some other digital projection (which most HDTVs are).

For instance, you can see significantly more detail from a regular DVD on an LCD computer monitor, including all the blocking and artifacting, but displayed on a regular CRT television it looks unquestionably more vibrant.

I'd say if you have a sizeable SD-CRT television lying around (and who doesn't), and better yet, if it has 100-120Hz refresh rate (the more recent ones do), then try the Wii on it, and you might be suprised.

Edit:

Of course there's no contesting shader effects and effects density, even accounting for the resolution. Something doesn't necessarily look less photo-real because it's not in HD. For instance, you wouldn't mistake news anchors for being animatronic faxcimilies because you're watching the news on an SDTV. The difference is analogous to the PS3 being able to render people, while the Wii could only say render wax-works. Of course it might not matter if the wax work is wearing a more interesting costume and pulling a funny face. Entertainment is entertainment.

A big part of the difference between watching SD on an HDTV vs. SDTV is the quality of the scaler in the tv.  Most HDTV's are made with not-so-good scalers that don't do too good of a job at converting the image to a resolution that the tv can display.

Also, using an HDTV to watch SD media is sort of like getting glasses and seeing someone you always thought was attractive without glasses, but suddenly realizing they don't look as good when you can see more detail...

(CRT's do have much better image quality though) 

Ah I see.

Also, I'm more and more troubled by the lack of HD CRT's

I've seen one or two about, but not in a while. They're so nice and bright and so cheap. If I had the space (and I could still find one), I'd definitely prefer it to my LCD.

Can we apply the old adage, "Ignorance is Bliss" here?

I have an old TV.