IGN is reporting that there will not be Dolby Digital for Wii. The article states that the "special" A/V plug does not have an optical out and hence no Dolby Digital. I may not be a audiophile wiz or anything, but I do remember seeing a coaxial digital connection on the back of my stereo that used plain old copper. IGN further goes on to report that all the Wii games demoed at E3 were only using Dolby Pro Logic II. Having been to E3 a few times myself rarely has any vendor bothered to set up a surround sound system to demo a game. The background noise level is way too high and space is far too much a premium. Is IGN seeing a story that just may not be there? If the Wii doesn't come with even what is standard in this generation is Nintendo taking cost cutting too far?

well the wii looks to only support up to 480p

Wow, that really sucks, I guess sound will sort of remain farther back along with HD. Super SMash Bros. Brawl I guess will just remain simple Pro Logic II. Would've been cool to play it in HD with cool surround sound.

Though personally I don't mind at all. I think graphics and sound are probably farthest down on my list of reasons to buy consoles.

Dolby Digital can indeed be be played over a coax cable (DTS as well); most modern receivers and dvd players support this option, but I think game consoles have typically only supported optical for Dolby Digital.

I'm not too surprised by this; Pro Logic II is pretty good, most people can't even tell the difference. The only problem I see is that receivers that can decode Dolby Digital outnumber those that can decode Pro Logic II, the latter being much newer.

As if we needed another reason to not buy from Nintendo

One thing is to focus on content instead that on trends, and another to piss-off or just plain ignore your potential market. No High Def, no hard disk, no Dolby Digital... what follows? Drop the DVD for cartridges again?

[rvana wrote--]

yesss, that would be so awesome, i am so sick and tired of those spinning optical discs. next generation for storage media, please!

edit: seems like when you quoting user n][rvana posts then forum breaks

Flipkin's right that no optical doesn't mean no dolby digital, since you can send digital audio through coax (even just a 1/8" to RCA plug). Nevertheless, if they're going to launch this for $200-250, then they're going to have to cut costs somewhere. If you need a digital surround sound experience for a console, spend the extra dough on an XBox 360 or PS3.

There is a license cost to be paid for every unit sold that supports Dolby Digital. It's quite possible that Nintendo just didn't want to jack the cost up an additional $10 a unit (or eat $10 per unit if they kept the cost the same).

I know there are people with specialized audio setups out there, yet personally, I rarely come across gamers using anything but TV speakers or a 2 speaker stereo system. I'm sure the lack of support hurts, but it certainly doesn't seem like it would have a large effect on sales.

I use Dolby Digital or DTS with my gaming systems. Pretty nice really.

true, most people go with what they have and don't tend to have a full surround sound system to support such things, but nowadays you have the surround sound in a box now which makes it easier and cheaper for the average person to get now... so you do have it out there and it's growing

as the prices of HDTV come down people will want the full effect of say watching TV or DVD movies thus they get these surround sound systems, many of these people also have video game systems, so why not plug those into the surround sound and HDTV to get the best experience you can get from the game too?

it's really a big loop, it's just a shame that the Wii won't take advantage of this trend, perhaps in the next console they will

but if you're just playing the kiddy type games like Mario how much sharper can Mario get?

The other thing is that these consoles have a 5 or 6 year life. When progressive scan DVD players came out they were twice the price of a regular DVD player, now you cannot get a DVD player that does not support progressive scan. I think the same thing will happen with HDTV. The price will drop and eventually all TVs will support 1080i, 720p or both. Nintendo is betting that this takes longer than this new generation cycle.