If the Wii was in HD, i'd be playing it on my SD TV.

If the Wii was HD, it would have been too expensive for smaller 3rd parties to develop interesting experimental games on any console at all, and they'd have to stick to the DS and the PC. We wouldn't have games like No More Heroes, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, MadWorld, or the Conduit.

The Wii would have had a smaller userbase due to the higher price, and even less 3rd party support, and a much less interesting library without the games I just mentioned.

A Wii HD in 2006 would have sucked and failed and possibly even killed Nintendo. A Wii HD in 2009 or 2010 would be even worse. There will never be a Wii HD.

As many people have said, even if the Wii had gone 'HD', it wouldn't have changed much. Aside from a few third parties making some additional games focusing on higher end graphics, most third parties focused on the 360 and PS3 right from the start of this gen and ignored the Wii outright.

The only reason the Wii got any attention this gen was because the Wii overtook the other two consoles in marketshare, causing third parties to give it a second glace 2-3 years into this gen once their initial games didn't sell as well as games like WiiFit or Mario Kart. But instead, all they did was put shovelware and inferior games on the system looking for money. This policy has nothing to do with graphics or 'HD'. It has to do with third parties alienating themselves from Nintendo. Increased graphics wouldn't have brought the third parties in. You wouldn't have seen God of War, Assassins Creed or Grand Turismo on the Wii just because it went 'HD'. That's like saying the Dreamcast could have stolen third parties away from the PS2 with a little more ram.

HD would not have flopped the console.. LOL..The wii launched at $249.. an already inflated price for very very outdated hardware..if ppl chose it at this price, with almost nil internet capabilities,no HDD, horrible frnd system etc etc, they would have prolly loved it even more if it was HD.. it would have been no reason for it to fail.. if anything, It would have been a lot more pleasant to look at...

^Nintendo wouldn't have been ab;e to price it at $249 if it was HD

Yes, we already know it would be around the same price as the other consoles. But it would have had the same games as the PS360, PLUS games that support motion control.

The HD wouldn't make the console flop. It would've made people think like this... If you get a Xbox 360, your only games would be halo and gears. I rather play mario, zelda, metroid, starfox, pikmin, kirby PLUS the 3rd party support like modern warfare 2 bioshock orangebox resident evil 5 street figher iv, the games i already mentioned :P sounds like a lot to me

I already understand why they chose support for standard/480p and EDTV's(which noone has lol)
because noone knew what was going to be the standard HD. And of course blueray won, so now microsoft failed at somethin(hd player)... I want my money back :P

People keep bringing up they'll be playing the Wii on their standard tv anyways. C'mon though, a LOT of people already replaced their standard tvs. Time for HD :) can't wait.
But Nintendo did the smart thing, they thought what the majority of the people already had. Which was standard! When the consoles started coming out only less than 5% of people had HD tvs.
Nintendo always thinking about the majority, and that's what makes bank $_$

Third parties don't like Nintendo as a competitor they wouldn't have developed for an HD Wii any more than they already have

Yea man I agree with chu.

No it wouldn't have, that's the point.  Its not a simple matter of 'if you built it, they will come'.  Third parties have made it clear, even if Nintendo is the LEADER of the industry, they would rather make games for other consoles, handhelds, PC, anything else than a Nintendo console.  Heck, they even made a point to make games for the DS early on and skip the Wii.  Even if the Wii had gone 'HD', many if not most of the games we saw today would have alienated themselves from the system.  You think GTAIV would have gone to the Wii?  Or MGS4?  Grand Turismo?  Assassins Creed?  Uncharted?  Yeah right.

If the Wii would have went 'HD' or focused on graphics or basically ANYTHING besides what it did, Nintendo would probably be in the same position it was with the GameCube last gen, which was a console that focused on graphics and trying to win over third parties.  Instead, they're leading the industry in marketshare and profits...but with no third party support.  Because third parties never gave them any real support.  Not in the beginning of this gen and not even now in 2009.

Nintendo had their back against the wall and took a chance. They couldn't afford to keep up a technology race, so they went another, cheaper route, and it payed off. If they had not been in trouble, they would have probably never made the Wii, HD or not.