Your Wii Games Won't Be Upscaled On Wii U

Wii hardware was capable of playing GameCube discs, but that won't be possible in Wii U. Since it's compatible with Wii remotes and accesories, it'll obviously play Wii discs, but the question is whether Nintendo will alter the look of those Wii games with the more powerful Wii U.

The answer is no, based on a conversation I had yesterday with Mark Franklin, head of Nintendo's public relations. Pop in a Wii disc, the games will play like they did on the Wii.

No upscaling or texture filtering, unfortunately.

Ah well. The dream of effortlessly getting Super Mario Galaxy 2 in HD has been shot down.

Quest complete?  Sucks that Wii games will still look like crap.

damnit!!

EDIT: - Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.. I've been 2nd so many times.. I just want to finish this damn quest already!

Why.

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought? 
 
Typical Nintendo.

This be some buuuulsheet.

@pocketfudge said:

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought? Typical Nintendo.

It's typical everyone at this point. Nintendo is far from the only company to do this.

What a missed chance.

This is the same company that released the ROM for Super Mario All-Stars on a Wii disc. Can't say I'm too surprised but appreciate the confirmation on the new system.

Thanks Patrick!

What the crap? Hasn't the emulation scene established that first-party Wii games have better textures on the disc? Why is Nintendo never going to use them?

Come October I will be able to play them on my PC upscaled... so sure, keep it up Nintendo!

The fact that you can do this via emulation on the PC means that there are few reasons Nintendo couldn't have included it. Many of the higher-res textures are already on disc.

@pocketfudge said:

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought? Typical Nintendo.

It's typical everyone at this point. Nintendo is far from the only company to do this.

man, fuck that. another reason to not spend money on nintendo

Everytime more news about the wiiu comes out the less I want it.

No unified online.

More powerful than 360/pc but less powerful than my 3 year old 600$ pc :(

No wii upscaling

No gamecube support

Guess I'm sitting the wiiu out or buying it to play 2-3 games I thought were awesome (silent hill/boom blox) and then selling it like I did with the wii.

The closest that Wii games will ever be HD is 480p, which isn't too bad but yeah. Still the Wii U game will be 1080p so that good to hear. 

This is a really stupid thing on nintendo's part.   If some homebrew dudes can cook up an emulator to run all that stuff in nice crisp HD then certainly Nintendo should have something on the Wii U that can do the same thing.  They'd sell a lot more people some games that they might not have picked up during the Wii's run just because they didn't want a console that wasn't HD.

@Brendan said:

@pocketfudge said:

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought? Typical Nintendo.

It's typical everyone at this point. Nintendo is far from the only company to do this.

QFT, though I can definitely agree with everyone else that this particular instance is kind of dumb.

I'm sure the reason they did this is to keep the cost down. I'm not really sure how consoles do that anyway. But there again, Nintendo does like to repackage games. Super Mario Galaxy HD with both SMG 1&2 on the disk would sell like hotcakes.

@Burb said:

first

A winner is not you.

So the Wii U is basically a HDMI cable for your standard Wii....

So the Wii U is basically a HDMI cable for your standard Wii....

@Patrick Klepek Gee, thanks for ruining my WEEK. :-/

Just the fact it plays Wii games is good, unlike PS3 not being backward compatible with PS2. I'm pretty positive about the potential of Wii U, especially that Nintendo have got the time to decide on the final spec of the box.

Well, that sucks.

@Little_Socrates said:

@Brendan said:

@pocketfudge said:

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought? Typical Nintendo.

It's typical everyone at this point. Nintendo is far from the only company to do this.

QFT, though I can definitely agree with everyone else that this particular instance is kind of dumb.

PS3 upscales PS2 by default. It doesn't look as good as the HD re-released but that's to be expected. So no, not typical everyone.

Not a big surprise. Gotta sell us those Wii HD Classics. I'm sure we'll see Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Twilight Princess, and Goldeneye in dazzling HD for the new low cost of $29.95 each.

C'mon people, get some sense. Not even the most powerful PC out today can handle the Wii library at 100%. Even with low-level knowledge of Wii hardware it would take years to emulate and check every Wii release.

How else are they going to try to resell you HD versions of the same crap you've already bought?  Typical Nintendo.

No gamecube games and no upscaling. I'm sure someone's said this before, but apparently the U in Wii U stands for useless.

Wow, the response to this article caught me completely off-guard. Personally I wouldn't even consider this factoid news-worthy, but people are apparently genuinely bothered by the fact that the Wii U won't upscale Wii games. I'd have thought that the majority of people playing Wii games wouldn't be worried about something as trivial as a few extra pixels. It matters even less when you consider that games like Super Mario Galaxy look great irrespective of the Wii's technical handicaps.

I'm growing increasingly tired of the HD-obsessed, pixel-counting, 'graphics are everything' mentality that seems to pervade gaming communities these days.

@dankempster: It's a valid thing to be tired of, but then it raises the question of what would sell you on a new gaming system?

Coudn't care less, I never cared about backwards compatibility, new generation means new games. If I really want to play old-gen game, I will hook up the old system and play it that way for nostalgic reasons. You guys are such whiners.

First no Gamecube and now this. Wii U is turning into F U.

@dankempster: To me, people are just looking for a reason to hate on Nintendo. I bet half these people don't play Gamecube games and also say their Wii is collecting dust and has no games. It leaves me scratching my head. But if Nintendo did release Super Mario Galaxy 1&2 in HD, I would buy it along with many other HD revisions from the Wii catalog of games.

Seems silly that it won't do this seeing that you can do it on the PC using Dolphin, so obviously it's capable. Got to figure it would take almost no work on their part to make this happen on the Wii U if they wanted to.

Nintendo seems bent on making it it harder and harder for me to be interested in their new console.

This is not an issue. Stop pretending that it is.

Wow, really?  This seems like a huge oversight, if it is true.  I was sort of looking forward to seeing Super Mario Galaxy in HD.  Oh well, this clearly isn't the selling point.

@Scarlet_Rogue: I guess I'm in a very, very small minority that wouldn't mind if we didn't see big leaps forward graphically in the next generation of consoles. Ultimately, the thing that sells a system to me is the games that are (or will be) available for it. I realise a lot of people aren't like me and they want visible returns for investing in a new system. Graphics are the most obvious and instant way of providing that return to the consumer, I guess. I just don't personally see how refusing to upscale last-generation games is a big deal.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I don't like pretty things. I like a gorgeous game as much as the next guy. It just bothers me when it gets taken to such extremes as people pixel-counting to ensure that a game is running in 'true HD', or people saying that something 'looks like a PS2 game', completely ignorant of the fact that hey, a lot of PS2 games still look pretty good, even today. Ultimately graphics are an aspect of the game. They're not the game itself, and they're not a de-facto measurement of a game's overall quality. Choosing not to upscale those Wii games isn't going to make them somehow worse, but judging by the reactions here, that's what a lot of people seem to think.

Jesus christ, most of you people don't even play Wii games, stop acting like it's a problem. 

@Scarlet_Rogue: I guess I'm in a very, very small minority that wouldn't mind if we didn't see big leaps forward graphically in the next generation of consoles. Ultimately, the thing that sells a system to me is the games that are (or will be) available for it. I realise a lot of people aren't like me and they want visible returns for investing in a new system. Graphics are the most obvious and instant way of providing that return to the consumer, I guess. I just don't personally see how refusing to upscale last-generation games is a big deal.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I don't like pretty things. I like a gorgeous game as much as the next guy. It just bothers me when it gets taken to such extremes as people pixel-counting to ensure that a game is running in 'true HD', or people saying that something 'looks like a PS2 game', completely ignorant of the fact that hey, a lot of PS2 games still look pretty good, even today. Ultimately graphics are an aspect of the game. They're not the game itself, and they're not a de-facto measurement of a game's overall quality. Choosing not to upscale those Wii games isn't going to make them somehow worse, but judging by the reactions here, that's what a lot of people seem to think.

@dankempster: I agree mostly. I think the bigger deal is that there's really nothing actually coming out for this new system, so this is how upscaling and Gamecube compatibility become more of an issue. I will say though they won't upscale it good that the wii games are at least compatible.

Seriously?... lame.

@Scarlet_Rogue said:

@dankempster: I agree mostly. I think the bigger deal is that there's really nothing actually coming out for this new system, so this is how upscaling and Gamecube compatibility become more of an issue. I will say though they won't upscale it good that the wii games are at least compatible.

How can you say nothing is coming out for the new system when it's not going to be released until probably fall of next year? Do you work for Nintendo and know something we don't?

@Claude: That's my point. How can you be exicted for something which as of now, is just a box that plays wii games. I think any hate/praise is premature. Maybe next E3 when they have more solid things to show for it.

@Burb: Quit it with the first crap.

@ttocs said:

@Burb: Quit it with the first crap.

Quit it with the calling out the first crap by calling out the first crap.

At least the games will still look better, all I wanted at the very minimum was HDMI.  Component makes shit look like even more shit.