Eggplante!

gpu isnt the problem, resolution can be increased by simply decreasing scene complexity. The problem is that a larger resolution is still a bigger data size even AFTER its finished and rasterized.

The problem is hardware, specifically the wi-fi out, which is custom made to output a precise packet size, interleaved, at unprecedented speeds (way, WAY faster than a ps3 or 360 controller. Faster than a tv can display the image....) Simply De-interleaving the data can increase report size by 2x, (still not enough for hd) but.... will cripple signal distance to a few feet.

They would need to change the systems wifi out for an hd gamepad.

Again, we don't know if they've already accounted for that packet size in the design of the Wii U. Odds are, they haven't, but it's still possible that the packets they've been sending for the current titles are not using up all the bandwidth that their WiFi protocol is capable of.

There is truth to his argument.... and yours as well.

Image quality consists of 2 main factors, Well, really just one, they are linked, so one is typically the product of the other, unless you do something silly, which i will use as an example later: resolution, which is what you are talking about, the number of pixels, and ppi, pixels per inch aka pixel size.

You can have a resolution of 4k, but if your pixels are the size of lego blocks, you are getting a lousy picture.

The pixels in the gamepad are much much smaller than those in an hdtv, so despite having less pixels, it still has a comparable image quality, particularly with supersampling (downsizing a much larger picture) giving the appearence of higher resolution.

Although, increasing the resolution within the same physical screen size ALSO increases ppi (makes pixels smaller so you can fit more) for a double whammy of image quality increase.

Which, unfortunately, is impossible for the gamepad without changing the wii u console.

I understand what you're trying to say a bit more now, but I still don't see the merit of it. The first point you made had no mention of changing screen size, which is where the miscommunication might have been.

However, saying that the Wii U is not capable of displaying a higher PPI on it's GamePad without changing the console might not be true. You'd need to change the GamePad, yes, but as I mentioned above, Nintendo hasn't told us about the technology they're using under the hood to stream video to the GamePad. Maybe there is more bandwidth available than they're using or than we know about, and a higher PPI screen - let's say something with a 1708x960 resolution on the same 6" screen instead of the 854x480 one (yes, I know that's a total stretch) - and it would be possible.

Banned because I squashed the goomba.

theres no reason for it to be HD dumb thread its HD  down sampled to 480p+ so your getting effectivly HD anyways and the gamepads screen to pixel count is higher than a lot of HD tvs

Your argument makes no sense. HD provides higher fidelity. If you downsample HD to 480p, yes it might look better than what you would traditionally get as 480p content, but it's still not HD. Not even close. Compare an HD image downsampled to 480p and another that is 1080p or even 720p for that matter. You'll see a world of difference.

Not only is it pointless, its impossible.

The system was designed for a 480p gamepad, not just with fillrate, but in data streaming speed as well. An hd image would not only demand more from the gpu, but the data size being streamed to the gamepad would exponentially increase, and would likely not only need to take more than one report to deliver, increasing lag, but no longer be able to be interleaved decreasing distance from the system.

I wouldn't say it is impossible. Nintendo has designed their streaming protocols from the ground up. We don't know what kind of throughput they get or how much they're using right now. It's smart for them to have designed something that can have its functionality opened up so that, as developers get better with system resources, they have more bandwidth available. Now, Nintendo doesn't typically think that far ahead, I don't think, so I'm not saying it's there, but the fact is that we don't actually know what Nintendo is doing under the hood and how expandable it is.

I never sell back my games, so I don't have a problem with digital. If the games are huge, like Smash Bros though, I go retail. Another thing, people say that you don't own the game when you go digital, but you only own a license to play it. Is the company going to take it back from you or something?

They're not going to take it back from you or anything, but the argument is being made about whether or not you will always have access to that game. Let's say Nintendo goes bankrupt or decides to stop offering certain games on its online store. (Get around the fact that those things probably won't happen, but we've seen worse and weirder things happen). If you have paid for a game and are granted a license to use it but Nintendo no longer offers  it, you can't redownload it, which means you've effectively lost the money you've paid for it. The same thing would not happen with a physical copy unless it requires a constant internet connection to servers to verify its authenticity, though game companies are moving away from that now anyway.

The same applies to physical retail games and not just digital games.

That's actually not true. No, you don't own the physical assets of course, or every gamer would have a 0.00001% ownership of Modern Warfare 3 or Super Smash Bros. or any other game. But you do own an always playable copy of the game that cost you probably the same price as a digital copy would have.