Nintendo continues to sell hardware at near-record levels, but if there is one knock against the company, it’s that it has shied away from high definition graphics. Sure there’s a Wii in almost every household in the world, but with such a large number of homes having state-of-the-art TVs, is there a market being shut out? Yesterday, Shigeru Miyamoto was in New York City for a roundtable event to chat about current and upcoming Nintendo projects. During the Q&A that followed the panel, IndustryGamers asked the venerable gaming legend about his feelings on HD graphics, and whether or not they have a future with Nintendo. Although he didn’t confirm that the next console would in fact have HD capabilities, neither did he deny it.

“I don't think there's anything wrong with pretty graphics, and if I'm a consumer that has an HDTV, I'd want to be able to play my games with nice graphics too. And I think as we've seen the penetration rates for HDTV increase, we're going to see video games and Nintendo's games move along in step with the progression of technology.

But what I don't think is necessarily true is that the graphics itself is something that's going to make the gameplay experience better. So we're still going to focus on the gameplay, but we'll take advantage of the technology as it comes out.”

Honestly, at this point, the question isn’t whether or not the next Nintendo platform will be HD, but when it will be available. Nintendo’s original focus with the Wii was motion control, which both Sony and Microsoft have proven can live side by side with HD presentation. Since more people are buying plasma and LCD sets every day, and game developers the world over proving that HD presents no obstacles to good gameplay (in fact, more often proving the opposite) there is simply no logical reason Nintendo will continue on as the only SD console maker.

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