I think this is a point the whole non-HD crowd believe in: A Wii is just as, or nearly as, graphical on an SDTV as a PS3/360 is on an SDTV. It is infact nowhere near it. I own an SDTV and use HDTV via VGA Cables on my 360 to compare everything. Does the HDTV-like quality of a computer monitor provide a huge bonus over non-HD platforms such as the Wii? Absoutely. There is a HUUUUUUUGE difference that gives the 360/PS3 a huge graphical bonus. However, on an SDTV there is still a very sizable difference in qualities. Games like Gears of War, Oblivion and Condemned are very very very graphical powerhouses on an SDTV, and I was blown away by them. This is in comparison to the Wii, which on an SDTV is an improvement over the PS2/Xbox, but by only a small margin. Yes, there is less area (pixel wise) to push an uber-graphical PS3/360 game on an SDTV, but there is still lots of room for improvement on an SDTV for even the PS3/360 to go.

In a lot of ways you can not see much improvement over the Wii on a standard definition television, for example the Wii is (should be) able to produce (approximately) 30 Million polygon per second in game and SD can only display 20 Million pixels (at 60fps) so increasing polygon performance really only produces polygons that are smaller than a pixel (typically refered to as Micropolygons); also the texture performance of the Wii is about as good as you can display on a standard definition television. The area where the XBox 360 and PS3 can produce a noticeable improvement over the Wii at Standard Definition is in shader effects and image post processing. There are two things to consider about shader effects though, they are probably the #1 reason next generation game development costs are so high and they're far more noticeable at higher resolutions because they are best used for displaying variation over small areas on a surface.

My main/only gripe with Wii graphics at SD is that there seems to be a necessary trade off between either blurry textures or texture shimmer (with sharp textures). If it was rendering at a higher resolution internally that wouldn't be an issue. If developers can conquer texture shimmer the Wii is golden at SD (I think it's effects-generating capability are fine as is).

Nope, you don't need it but its real advantage is only there on HD. Especially with the PS-3. BluRay on an SD Display isn't really worth the price. At least I would say: For a SD Display the advantage to a PS-2 or Wii isn't worth the price difference.

I don't really worry about Japan, it might not beat the Wii, but the games they want will come out... Final Fantasy alone is a 2 million+ seller (i'm talking about the game, not how many PS3s it will sell), then we got Monster Hunter, based on the PSP sales, i say its gonna do pretty well and we got Metal Gear Solid, again, it will sell a lot.

The PSP versions of Monster Hunters are ports from the PS2 versions, which didn't sell *nearly* as well. If Final Fantasy XIII is the only big game at the time, and lacks significant replayability, *some* buyers might pull a "Blue Dragon" and sell the console and game back after beating it, that happened a lot for that game. :-/

Why should Square-Enix sacrifice their biggest franchise to help Sony sell systems? If the FF13 games are still a year or so off, it seems to me the much smarter decision, in terms of Japanese sales anyway, would be to move the main series to Wii, and make whatever they've been working on for the PS3 a spin-off of some sort.

It really depends how far into production they are. I'm sure FF13 is a much bigger and longer proposition than... Probably most other games in history... So if they are really planning to release the game in 2007, its unlikely they will totally scrap what they've made and move the project to Wii... Especially if they've already spent 10 or 20 million dollars developing the game for PS3, they aren't likely to rebrand that work as a spin-off... What they might do is announce PS3 will only have timed exclusivity of the game, before the other systems get ports.

What they've already put into it they've already put into it - it's a sunk cost - but anything from now till when it launches it time/money/effort they could be putting into something else that could well better. E.g. if SE has a FF13 for PS3 that's 1/2 done, and some spin-off for Wii that's 1/4 done, I think the *very* logical thing to do would be to tie-off the PS3 games's development (whether they call it a spin-off at launch or whatever doesn't matter), and put their focus on the one with the biggest sales and profit prospects.

I honestly think launching the PS3 version as planned, but announcing delayed 360 and Wii versions some months before, makes more sense then what you're suggesting. A 360 port opens up the Western audience, and may only cost 10-15% more according to some estimates. A Wii port opens up the Japanese audience, but would probably cost significantly more than a 360 port. Combined, that gives them the audience they need. I don't think the lack of power or the need to go to 2 discs would deter them from this option, though it could effect the quality of the game. What they can't do is launch a game that they want to sell 2.5 million copies in Japan, on a system which has only sold 2.5 million units, and may end up selling only 6 or 8 million total. That's just not smart business.