Bam. I think you just nailed it. Do you think they'd still include WS in the NSMB bundle?

Also, that would still be adopting Blue Ocean would it not? So Malstrom wouldn't feel too depressed lol.

Well being the successor from one of the best selling console games of all time sure doesn't hurt.. I don't see how anyone could argue that it WON'T boost Wii sales.. I'm not even saying the game will give the Wii any kid of long term boost. But it'll certainly lift sales enough to carry over until NSMB Wii comes out, and into the holiday season shortly after.

It's not really a successsor. It's a replacement for the original bundle, since Wii Fit is no longer being made. It's basically the same game with some new activities that has been on shelves for over a year and a half now, and costs 10$ more.

I doubt people will go crazy for a game that was available to them for that long already.

I'm sure it will sell in heaps to Wii Fit owners, but it will barely have any effect on potential buyers. It's not a new concept or a new game, it's the same Wii Fit with more content.

Well the successor to the best selling video game this gen hardly had a lasting impact on Wii sales ( I'm speaking of Wii Sports Resort).

Wii fit plus may not follow your "core" rules for being a successor. From a core perspective we think "this ain't enough, gimme more!" but from a casual perspective this package makes sense. Instead of having a shitload of new content (although 15 balance games is a shitload to me), the accessibility is widened so that more new players can get into the game. I believe this was the main point driven about Wii Fit Plus at E3. Specifically decreasing the time waiting between workouts and streamlining the more annoying aspects of the original game.

Yes it will probably start off selling heaps to original Wii Fit owners. But I also predict that, as word-of-mouth spreads, it will start increasing HW sales as new customers hear about the game.

Besides that, the original Wii Fit is still selling very well and driving system sells. It has almost consistantly placed in the worldwide top ten for almost a year and a half. This "replacement" as you call it will most assuredly boost those sales, once again, as we get into the holidays.

Honestly, I doubt it's even a retailer move: I think it's nothing but a Kotaku hoax. The 'ads' the article claimed to show are not only easily faked, but pretty easily detectable as fakes. For starters, when is the last time you <i>ever</i> heard a retailer use the term "price cut" in an ad? THey never do: they either couch it in euphemisms like "New low price!" or they intensify it with bolder phrases like "Prices SLASHED!" or "Dramaric reductions!" or other such things, but that particular phrase is verboten. The moment the ad said this, it tipped its hand as a hoax.

I'm suprised there hasn't been anymore leaks yet. But some of you are still putting way too much stock in what Nintendo says. Just as an example..

Nintendo denies that they're redesigning the DS (Jan 16/06) - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news160106nodsredesign
Nintendo announces the DS Lite (Jan 26/06) - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news260106dslite

This obviously doesn't prove anything about the current situation other than to take everything Nintendo PR says with a huge grain of salt.

Wii doesn't need miracles by any means, just small pushes to keep a decent pace until Xmas season begins. Even in one of its worst weeks it managed to outsell XB360 in its price cut week, how could we call this disappointing? A possible PS3 threat is still far away, it must approach XB360 first, when it will be the time, Wii will have all its price cut weapons still available.
The worst case would be having to play one of them against XB360, if it manages to be able to start outselling Wii more than one or two weeks in a row, but right now it doesn't seem so. The only thing quite evident is that most probably Wii can forget going beyond 50% and that Malstrom will have to content himself of a partial disruption that will change Sony's and MS' way to play in this market but that won't kick them out of it, but Wii's leadership doesn't look threatened, at least for the time being.

Wii sales increased 3% in America this week. Why? =O

That is the key problem. Kyoto Cross starts on September 26th, which would be *perfect*, but their venue isn't until about a week after that.