Nintendo never made a huge system..

Who wants a Console that weights 10-20 pounds..

also Nintendo wants you to bring your system to friends house..having a small system is easier to bring..

My friend brought his xbox over once, he had to put that thing in a camper bag..lol

Man all his games and controllers plus the system, that thing was heavy as hell..

You should at least read a few articles maybe even the articles from Nintendo about the ideology of Wii.

When Iwata questions two of their ID guys they make refference to how challenging it was to make it as small as Iwata wanted it, they didn't even understand why he wanted it to be the size of 3 cd cases I believe they said.

He later on explained that the Wii fit's into the living as something that operates to entertain but remains invisible.

Yea you should read before you make predictions, anyone with a question in their head could find that on google.

And let's not forget that N64 was kinda big and its controllers were gigantic beasts.

Maybe it's because Miyamoto likes carrots.

 so that's how my friend got that cute japanese chick to date him....

To an extent you can't control the size of your console unless you want to put older hardware in it. All the Wii technology is relativley old and the only reason why the 360&PS3 are larger is because the components are relativley newer , they are trying to shrink them however and we should see a PS3 Slim in late '09 , '10.

Probably so it uses less material to design them, and so they can fit under your TV more easily. It's all about saving money and convenience.

What if *gasp* it's due to several reasons? I know it's unbelievable... :P

There are many reasons to make consoles small, besides the one you mentioned. Some of them have already been mentioned in this thread.

They wanted to make a small, quiet, affordable console that can deliver the player a good experience playing.