I really need a Wii hard Drive, copying games back and forth is just no on. Why did it have to have such a small amount of internal memory, I surpose to keep the price right down. I mean 2 gigs would be ample, 4 times the current amount, would it really of cost that much more??????

i would kill for a good star fox game... last night i had a dream that i was playing star fox 64.... i still love fox mccloud...

The normal Wii will stay as it is. With all the craziness this Xmas, expect the Wii to potentially STILL be selling out next Xmas - especially if they start bringing out new models.

I think you'll start seeing a WiiFit Wii bundle for next Xmas:

Wii (current package) + WiiFit/board for around $299 (no price cuts coming soon?)

If there is a price cut - maybe the normal Wii package drops to $229US, Wii/WiiFit for $279

...

There is no way they would just "throw" another Wii remote, Nunchuck (etc) in - they make great money off WiiPlay, and they will continue to do so. 

DVD support will almost certainly be a software upgrade - one thing Nintendo do NOT want is for people to start "updating" their Wiis - the process of moving channels, saves, Miis (etc) to another Wii is a real pain in the butt - and they would never encourage this on-masse.

Most likely - Animal Crossing will come with this hard disk (if its real, and if its needed) - and there is no way it will be a measely 10Gig (what's the point?). I'm guessing 60, although it could be larger.

They have proven that the best way to get acceptance of a new peripheral, is to bundle it with a big selling game.

 Pay close attention.

RETAIL COST =/= COST TO NINTENDO.

I'll say it again.

RETAIL COST DOES NOT EQUAL COST TO NINTENDO.

Just because Wii Fit retails for $80, or a Wiimote + Nunchuck combo retails for $70 doesn't mean it costs Nintendo that much. In fact, they cost Nintendo much, much less than that. They get priced at those levels to make a profit.

 Now, Nintendo wants to get their Wii Fit game out there to people. They'd like to get a lot of people to get Balance Boards so they can have another thing for developers to use. It's a proven fact time and time again that adding a peripheral to a system's repertoire any more than a year after launch is a poor idea and is usually not received well (hellooo, death of SEGA systems). Solution? Package it with all new consoles.

 Nintendo is making a killing right now on each console sold. So, yeah, they could keep their consoles at the same price and not generate any extra attention. And yeah, it could sell out through next Christmas.

 But that's if they keep production at lower levels.

Why not, instead, ramp up production to 2.5 or 3m each month? Sell as much as you possibly can! Because then, people would get them quickly, and attention would die off.

 Ah, so then you've gotta do something to catch their attention. Okay, add something else to the bundle. And, hey, when we made this system, it cost us $200 to make each one, but now it's only costing us $150 (completely an estimate, folks). So, we can add these extra things to the bundle AND lower the price. Ohhhh, that'll catch all sorts of attention!

A 10GB HDD, running at 5400 RPMs, would cost approximately $5-$10 to acquire these days. You can't even find them on Newegg anymore, and they've got 40GB for less than $40. DVD ability, I believe, costs around $20. So that's $30 extra. We're at $180 cost to Nintendo so far. Wii Fit couldn't cost them any more than $40, and the extra Wiimote and Nunchuck won't cost them any more than $40. Add in Wii Play, which will cost them about $5 max, and we're at $270 cost to Nintendo. Pricing at $350 would be $80 profits at those estimations! If I was more liberal in my estimations, I'd have to say that $310 would be the MAX cost to Nintendo for that bundle, which means they'd still make $40 profits.

 @shams

A 10GB HDD is what makes the most sense. Nintendo isn't trying to turn their system into the media center of the household. They aren't trying to get people to download movies, TV shows, songs, their life stories, etc onto their Wii. The HDD is for downloading WiiWare and Virtual Console titles. I have 12 VC titles (2 N64, 4 SNES, the rest a mixture) and I still have almost half of my blocks still open. With that said, one could probably download around 420-450 VC titles onto 10GB. I doubt anybody will EVER have that many, and I'm sure WiiWare titles won't take up an outrageous amount of space, either, for the most part. 10GB is plenty, especially if external HDDs would still be available to use.

I think, though, if they don't package in an internal HDD, then it's likely going to be 4GB internal flash memory, with external HDD support.

You have to remember that (1) the extra Wiimote + Nunchuck + Wii Play is only for the "Upgraded" version, (2) Given who the Wii is marketed toward and appeals to, many people would still prefer to go for the cheaper Wii and purchase their extra controllers later on. What putting out the upgraded edition does is make the Wii appeal more toward the "hardcore" gamers and pull in a greater audience. I think they could still continue with production of the same number of "Classic" Wii systems they're doing now (1.8m/month) and do around 1m/month of the "Upgraded" systems, and pull out pretty close to even.

Anyhow, I don't know why you guys are getting so worked up over my predictions. They're a lot more realistic than John Lucas's or leo-j's. :p 

I wish it weren't a RUMOR!!!

With the way the hype around Retro is now, I think people would be excited even if they announced they were making a game where you watch paint dry.

Too much rumor for me.

*Thumbs down*

Hey I heard that Retro is making a painting game....you know like okami!!