Of the 3 current generation consoles the Nintendo Wii is the only one that is not HD. This has brought them several advantages. The consoles are cheaper to manufacture so they can be sold at a profit, unlike the HD consoles from Microsoft and Sony. In addition the Wii can have games developed for it far more quickly and cheaply because a far smaller number of pixels are being manipulated.

HDTV puts about four times the number of pixels on the screen compared to the conventional TV standard we have grown up with. When consumers see this, it is such a huge leap in performance that they want it. But at the moment there isn’t much true HDTV content of any kind so people are generally unaware of the capabilities. They are buying HDTVs mainly for their large screen size and the convenience of their flat form.

However this situation is changing every day as more HDTV is broadcast and more people get HD DVD or Blu-Ray players. Games thus far on the HD consoles have come nowhere near delivering the full HDTV experience. Over 2008 this will gradually change. When it does the results will blow you away. Once people routinely watch broadcast HD television and watch HD videos they will not want to go back to inferior quality. The same will apply to gaming. Once people are fully HD literate they will not want to go back.

So what is key to the life of the Wii is how long it takes for people to become fully HD aware (they are not there yet) and how long it takes the games industry to make the best of HD graphics. These will not be sudden things. They will ramp up gradually over the next couple of years.

Wii is an amazing creation of Nintendo and has a fantastic but short future ahead of it. Imagine if someone brought out a console that only displayed in black and white because that is what televisions used to be. This is the situation Wii will be in by Q4 2009. Nintendo are not stupid, they know this, so new product announcements are inevitable.