Found some interesting info on why Wii games look blurrier than GC games despite the hardware being so similar.
On GC, 4:3 games are overwhelmingly 640:448 (or close to that) output in a 720x480 wide box at PAR 10:11. The few widescreen games that are out there seem to just output the same thing and allow the TV to stretch it to 16:9.
On Wii, per Nintendo’s recommendations…
The Wii does a render at a virtual res of 854x480 to an internal res of 640x480, then stretches that to 711x480, scanned out in the same 720x480 box as GC before your TV stretches it again out to the panel.
Of course the developer could do something different and certainly games did, but this was their recommendation and it would explain why most games in widescreen seem soft.
And maybe you think 4:3 fixes this? Yeah still stretched by the hardware…
