In interview to the USA Today, Reggie Fils-Aime (president of the Nintendo of America) affirmed:

 “Not to include a DVD Player in the launching of the Wii it was a difficult decision. Not to include function for video of high-definition in the launching also was a difficult decision. Our intention was to offer a sufficiently accessible price, and us we believe that the market will validate our decisions after [the launching].”

Source.: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-11-18-nintendo-wii_x.htm

UAUUU!!! It is possible… after all of accounts, nothing hinders that the Wii receives an update saw Internet that qualifies new functions after all -, the hardware all already is there. As well as it will go to happen with the DVD Player!

I could be wrong but I believe the Wii may need more than just a firmware update to play DVD's.  If they varied too much from the DVD standards, a physical modification may be necessary.

naw the player part is pretty much a straight dvd player, they just didn't include the software and codec's for dvd playback.

 if you search around you can find pretty much the exact model that nintendo used....

There is nothing in your quote suggesting that a firmware update will give the Wii DVD playback or high-resolution output (greater than 480p).  In fact he suggests that including those features would have increased the production costs of the Wii, implying that it does not have these capabilities in the hardware. 

Yeah... and I'm waiting for Panasonic to update my DVD player to play HD-DVD's!!

DVD channel will become available for sale for $15 - $25 in the Wii Shop Channel eventually - MARK MY WORDS.

wii high-def, aint that a oxymoron.

 Yup, that would make sense.

The wii hardware can do DVD. There are mod chips out there already that can do it. (or are supposed to do it)

Probably Nintendo wants to have some features waiting for a smaller and more fashionable Wii in 2009.  They did it with DS to DS Lite, they probably are probably thinking the same thing now.