I think Nintendo is obliged to do this because of the lack of games there. The line up is seriously piss poor, these are just fillers to avoid completely empty months.

Why did you think they gave up? They already had 2 budget games scheduled for February as well (Samurai Warriors 3 and Momotaru Densetsu 2010)

I thought SW3 is an upgraded version... not just a plain re-release.

It's good that they continue with the budget line, but how about rereleasing their own games!?

Actually, I think higher rated and lower selling 1st/2nd party games would be a good fit for the service.  S&P2, Reginliev and Xenoblade all spring to mind as good potential releases (they're all also Gold rated in Japan btw).  No traditional franchise games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc) though.

In terms of 3rd party stuff, I'd also suggest the FFCC games and DQ spinoffs, but SE seems to prefer using their own Ultimate Hits line (which DQ Swords was already republished under in 2008 btw).  Same deal with various Capcom games and Capcom's own BEST Price line (Okami, RE Chronicles, RE4, MH3, Basara 3, TVC, etc).  The only real recent 3rd party game that jumps out at me is probably Sonic Colors (which was also Gold rated btw) but it's way too soon yet for that one.  If we go back further though, I think there's still some good candidates (Shiren 3, Fatal Frame 4, Puyo 7, NMH2, Tenchu 4, Sky Crawlers, various Harvest Moons, etc).

No, the budget game is just regular SW3, then the game is also getting an "Xtreme Legends" budget priced expansion.  

PS3 is getting both SW3 and the expansion together in one package, but at a full price.

sad thing is that it looks like the wii version wont really do much the same way basara didnt really perform on the wii. 

Samurai Warriors 3 did 280k on the Wii, that's not so bad. Or did you mean another game?