Sir John The Net Knight said:
Publishers and game designers dislike the Wii, because there's only so much the system can do. And this is directly linked to it significant lack of processor power. Motion controls aside, as even Nintendo now sees that motion controls are a dead end, the fact that the Wii is only 1.5x the power of it's predecessor and it unable to render graphics in HD makes games that would normally be produced for the PS3 and 360 into an ugly and unplayable mess when ported over to the Wii. Oh don't get me wrong, the system is great if you want to download old Mario games from yesteryear and there are certainly a few titles that work well on the Wii because they're tailor-made to the system itself. But Nintendo would do a lot of good by throwing some money into making a new console that supports the current technology.
Publishers should love the Wii as developing for it is significantly cheaper as you don't need to hire a small army of coders for
High Fidelity graphics seen on more powerful systems. But their problem is they think because they can skimp on the coders they can then skimp on the actual talented game makers, those who can craft great narratives and engaging gameplay.
Nintendo HAVE TOLD THEM THIS REPEATEDLY! They have said that Publishers should put their most talented CREATIVE minds on the projects, even if they only need minimal technical expenditure. Nintendo does this, they put MIYAMOTO on their games, legends like that. Where is Kojima's Wii game? What about Cliff Blezinksky's great Wii game? Capcom have put the effort in and they have delivered.
And you still need to spend quite a bit on tech of graphics as you have to get the most out of the system, in the process you can get very agreeable graphics;
Wii (Dead Space Extraction): http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/963/963176/dead-space-extraction--20090316044514238_640w.jpg
Xbox 360 (Dead Space): http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/screenshots/deadspace/screenshot_0726_09.jpg
Now I already know that this opinion is going to be deluged by a salvo of "Gameplay is more important than Graphics!!!" responses. I've said this in the past and I will continue to say it. The two are not mutually exclusive. Good graphics and good gameplay working together, hand-in-hand make for truly better games. (Don't mention brown, muddy shooters. That's not good graphics OR good gameplay.) If Nintendo worked with it's third-parties, rather than smacking them with a whip and screaming at them like R. Lee Ermey grilling a bunch of bratty, emo teenagers. They could do so much more then they have been.
Perhaps the issue is semantics, Graphics is too broad a term as literally everything you see of the game is graphics. Perhaps it is right to say that "graphics
fidelity doesn't
NECESSARILY matter", graphics fidelity meaning sheer pixel-pumping, shader processing, resolution, anti-aliasing and so on.
I think what almost always matters is the game's ART! Whether 2D graphics on a side scrolling game or a super-realistic 3D open world, the fidelity must be high enough to represent the art that the developers want to depict. Realism needs a lot of graphics fidelity... but how much does that actually benefit the game's art? Well that is a matter of debate and opinion.
But consider Kirby's Epic Yarn, beautiful art, but technically low graphics fidelity, it's all just on a 2D plane and low 480p resolution...
Far too many publishers - largely responsible for Wii's shovel ware - think they can get away with games where they put the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM time, money or effort into the games' graphics fidelity, art and gameplay. Basically, they are exploiting the gullibility of Wii's demographic of largely new gamers who are naive to such ploys. Then you have the other extreme, that just try to crowbar "hardcore" titles into the Wii like Mad World.
