Now that the Wii is out and we know it's limited to 480p, how do you feel about the visuals?  Are you disappointed that Nintendo didn't go HD after seeing what the Wii can do?

Honestly if I had known then what I know now I'm not so sure I would have started the crusade for HD.  The bigger issue with the Wii's graphics is the lack of programmable shaders.  If the Wii could handle all the effects of something like UE3 in an easy to implement fashion, but only at 480p, I think the visuals would've been more well received.

The chipset can certainly do some remarkable things, as the Rogue Squadron games have proven, but the normal mapping in these titles has to be attained in a more difficult way.  It goes against the grain of what Nintendo constantly touts, being easy to develop for...that is, if you actually want good visuals in your games and not PS2 quality.  If you are interested in this subject, there is a whole wealth of knowledge on various graphics forums about the "EMBM" feature within the "Flipper" & "Hollywood" GPU's of Nintendo's last two systems.  Supposedly the EMBM feature is more capable than Dx programmable shaders found in the the original Microsoft Xbox according to people, but I'm not technical enough to explain how or why this is.

The crusade for HD was sort of meaning to imply wanting all of that.  I get the impression from the media that when they say "High definition graphics", it is being lumped in together with everything the other systems can do, not just a higher resolution.  That is sort of what 1080up was going for, more than just a resolution.

Simply put, we were too late.  Maybe if we had known a year sooner when details on the spec were still being ironed out, a public awareness site such as ours may have been more influential, but Nintendo wanted to keep that under wraps in the first place.  We did have about 50,000 click-thru's over to sending Nintendo a letter regarding the topic, I guess we can be proud of that.  Rough up Nintendo's feathers a bit.  I'm confident we'll start hearing about work being started on a "WiiHD" in 3-4 years.

To answer your question, yes I am a bit disappointed.  But it is more frustrating to know that developers can get more out of the system than the Sony PlayStation 2 shovelware graphics they are putting out.  Luckily Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 has expressed interest in developing for the Wii while implying he would also make sure they would have some middleware that can be licensed to go along with that.  I guess if Mark Rein doesn't see an opportunity in this, at least someone does.  That is really what Wii developers need.  New middleware from a very intelligent house such as Factor 5.  Renderware just isn't cutting it anymore if developers want the Wii to look competitive with the Xbox 360 & PS3.   I'm just surprised Nintendo hasn't jumped on that yet.  They paid to develop those Musyx tools on GameCube, why not pay Factor 5 to get some better middleware going now that F5 has proven themselves in the graphics department?

Notice how I just said "graphics"?  heh, poor Lair. ;-)