Nintendo's decision not to make the Revolution HD compatible has angered some and left quite a few others saying "Don't care". But it's been a PR dream for Sony and Microsoft, who continue to insist that HD is the future. However, here's another take on it: HD may be extremely difficult to implement on a console's hardware, with the high quality graphics causing other problems in the display of the game.
As a piece of evidence, here's a snipet from one of the many E3 xBox 360 reviews on the web - "The graphics for [Gears of War] are phenomenal, but its framerate, as with most other 360 titles, was atrocious." This comes as little surprise to me. The more pixels you try and squeeze from a graphics card, the more you have to compromise on framerate. Even with absolutely top-of-the-range graphics cards available to buy at the moment, top whack HD displays (i.e. high pixel content monitors) end up with refresh rates of around 10 Hz. I've seen huge IBM monitors with a resolution of 3840 x 2400 pixels that could only be run at 2 Hz with dual graphics cards! Could Nintendo be neatly sidestepping a bit of technology that may become somewhat of a white elephant for Sony and Microsoft?
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