It's obvious

Of course it can do HD. After all, it's just about rendering graphics in a higher resolution, which means more drawing for the processors. PS3 and Xbox 360 could draw in all kinds of mad resolutions, but it doesn't mean it would be worth it. Wii's power just maxes out earlier, within standard definition television resolution.

#1, you said it

Yeah any tard can realise that it's just a GPU and any GPU can be set to a range of resolutions if need be. Sure they could be disabled now but there's no reason to think Wii couldn't do HD - even now. It just wouldn't be as grunty or look as nice seeing as it has low texture memory, slow GPU etc.

newsworthy not really

as you can see the ps2 is not even as half as powerful as the wii but it can also drive HD, try gran turismo 4 at 1080i, frames are still playable and also looks great. so if a programmer goes for HD support then we will be getting 720p or 1080i resolutions, but nintendo is concerned about compatibilities so they stick to the rule, 480i and 480p as an added bonus.its all about rules and decisions.

who cares

I do not care about HD. Why do you care about HD ? Oh brother.

Yeah,

I think I read about HD capability in "Who Cares?" magazine.

Technically...

480P is an HD resolution, just not a really high one...so yeah

1080i isn't too impressive

just think of it as 540p, it take much more processing power than 480p does, so xche78x's comment isn't as valid as it seems, but still is noteworthy.

actually...

480p is EDTV. but man, the next generation nintendo ought to be sick if it incorporates the same unique gameplay with higher resolutions.

forgot something

also xche78x's forgot to mention gt4 doesn't look great @ 1080i, i tried it (at least on a slim ps2) and its awful. the whole screen had this weird plaid overlay on it, bad enough to switch to 480p, which doesn't have that issue. Also the wii doesnt need to be hidef, it's not what miyamoto is going for. If it took off in japan like it did without hd capabilities (since japan are earlier adopters that North America), theres no demand for a high def version. However the argument is that it has built in hd capabilities that arent being used.If so, the ball is in the developers court. Like say any developer could give you an option to run in an expanded resolution as long as you have component cables. However none have done so yet. My only conclusion is that it doesn't do any favours for f/ps. Hd standards are @ 60fps. thats the hard part since ntsc is @ 29fps. but Im sure noone would have a problem with 720p @ 30 fps, which is completly possible on most wii titles, but not done. So the only thing to do to prove that the wii is capable of running in 720, is to slap a modchip in it and dev up some homebrew that just displays something simple @ 720p.