Still using Bee Movie as an example, it was a surprisingly good game.  It looked great in HD and it came out in a decent time frame for all consoles. It would probably cost Nintendo more money to optimize their product though, I agree.  But from a gamer's point of view, I'd be in heaven!

Zelda
StarFox

Metroid, if it goes back to first person view.

Um...

If we are talking a game that would ACTUALLY benefit gameplay-wise by higher resolution graphics, the answer is simple:

Pikmin.

You could get a bigger field-of-view, and control more Pikmins at the same time easily. Apart from that, better graphics is just that; better graphics. It's cool, but it doesn't really make the games more fun or more playable.

It is also important to remember that games have to be more expensive just because the console is more powerful. You don't HAVE to try to push the console to the max every time. A game like Pikmin, you could render it in 1080p to get better field-of-view, but it doesn't mean you have to make the graphics more advanced or up the polygon count in the character models.

Hm, I think Zelda would benefit more than Metroid Prime actually. More power could mean a bigger and more interactive world in Zelda. Of course Metroid Prime would benefit from it as well, but it's really the incredible art that makes Metroid Prime look so good. And don't give Retro Studios more powerful toys to play with, it ain't fair to the competition.

Couldn't agree more. But I also think, like some others here, Metroid Prime could really benefit from HD. The games are amazing as is, but I can only imagine what grand things Retro could do on more powerful HD hardware. Maybe F-Zero GX too, 'cos it's so speedy and the levels are so big and detailed.

Using the same modeling and texturing techniques and increasing the detail of the in game assets to a level where they wouldn't have graphical-artifacts at 1080p shouldn't increase development costs by (too) much; and most games would see some benefit from this if they were displayed on a HDTV. The over-all result of this would be games that looked crisper and cleaner, but it would still look more like a Wii game than what people associate with a HD console game.

In contrast, the advanced shader effects that add graphical richness and make games look more "Realistic" offer a lot of value and the main problem with them is they push development costs to a level that few small or mid-sized franchises can survive. The only games that would benefit from this are probable games where sales can be expected to be above 2 Million units; and if the game sells less than this the lower profitability (and potential loss) pushes the game to a level where it is far less viable.

every nintendo franchise except mario and kirby,
I don't really think those games would have a big change in HD

Anything that uses split screen. A four way split screen in 720p would give each player about 3/4 of the amount of pixels of a single Wii 480p. Any game that has you looking  in distance would benefit as well.

F-zero there is too much blur to tell whether it's 1080p or 480i. All it needs is for the framerate to stay at 60 hz, because if it drops down to 59 you're gonna lose the race :P

ya, this is really the only thing it would help with.

other than that, i can't think of a single reason or game really.