I agree with you completely.  The delay came because of how comited the developers were to giving the fans everything they requested.  Online battle, co-op, a full robust single-player game, and Sonic were all added based on demands of the fans.  I think it's great the company is that commited to it's fans, and I'll gladly take a delay for all those features. 

@Ben/Shams,

I don't know that you guys are really disagreeing that much. I had the feeling that they were rushing brawl a little bit originally to make the holidays. I don't think it is that far fetched to believe that they gave the situation a second look and decided "We have no need to rush, lets do everything exactly right.".

Not saying that it has to be the case, but its not out of the realm of possibility. Either way I think the decision to push back development was made based on the reasons mentioned in this thread thus far (ie quality, lack of urgency, giving other titles a breather), but I think the main reason was quality almost certainly quality.

Yes this game called Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a worthy contender to be Game of the Year for 2008!

It's completely because they stepped back and said they wanted to make the game perfect...that's what I was trying to say.

It's for development reasons, not a delay for the sake of stretching out Nintendo's first party releases.

Delaying brawl gives third party games a chance to be noticed, Zack and Wiki will do much better now then it would have before

While I understand where your coming from. It is a very intresting coincidance howeveras much as I agree this pattern is likely legit I disagree that WiiFit will be three months later. I'm betting WiiFit will see a release eitherearly early 2008 to catch the casual market right after Christmas while the Wii is still hot on their shelves or right before 2008 Christmas.

Personally I think Nintendo has alot instore for 2008. They only announced two new titles at this years E3 a major hint at whats to come. Nintendo announced after its massive swelling in resources and expendatures of its internal studios that it could single handedly support the Wii without the support of third parties. Nintendo claimed to have the developement capability to release a steady flow of first party titles enough to support the platform. So how is it possible that from the dozens of studios Nintendo has were only able to bring 2-new titles to the table for 2008-2009.

I think Nintendo has alot of announcing to do coming up. I expected at least 5-8 titles from E3 2007 not including the casual games (Which are reasonably cheap and quick to develope). Instead Nintendo only unvieled one major title and one casual game (WiiFit). I think that Nintendo held back announcing the 5 or so other titles for a major offensive.

Many expect the Wii to begin to slow down in 2008 or 2009 as visuals begin to reach their pinnacle on 360/PS3 and prices begin to fall even further for the two consoles. Nintendo is well aware of this as well and sees the need to ensure its software can make up for the visual differance. So I expect Nintendo to unleash a AAA+ line up at E3 2008 or a coming convention a lineup of about 10-15 titles to appear within the 2008(Q2-4) - 2009 (Q1).

 
I also understand how some may see Nintendo's delay as purely a case of polishing the title off and improving some of its features. I however have never thought other then online that their is any reason we aren't playing Brawl right now. It was the first game rumoured or even confirmed for Wii quit possibly the first Wii game to enter development.  With about 1-2 years in development it should be nearly complete if not complete already. As I said however online is a different story because the network. However Pokemon was online within a month of the Wii's launch in Japan which was the beginnings of the finished network. I think given about a year with the Wifi network kit Nintendo could very well have delivered a fully functioning Brawl by December. Infact I thought if they didn't concentrate on the online capabilities the title could have been done this spring.

So as you can see while I think online optimisation may have played a small role and sure it may just be getting polished but given the team developing it and the fact that it is such an important title. I have no doubt that the delay wasn't made entirely for development reasons. It just doesn't make sense that given two years that one of the most prominent studios with the backing of Hal and Nintendo couldn't complete the title for December. I think marketing played a massive role in the delay Nintendo realized that Mario:Galaxy and Brawl would be directly competing for holiday sales. Two major titles like Mario and SmashBros being released simultaneously would be a disaster. Nintendo saw the opertunity to improve their online networking as well as the void of early 2008 as a way for Nintendo to change that. Also Nintendo has been ridiculed for the big drought of first party software seen between launch and this summer. The void was filled with a few casual games but failed to provide anything to the hardcore. In order for Nintendo to keep the hardcore user base happy they have to spread their hardcore releases out more.

As you can see while development may have contributed there is just way to much for Nintendo to gain through the delay to be a coincidance. Nintendo isn't dumb its survived thanks to its marketing teams and ability to market its games heck the President Of Nintendo of America is a marketing genious. The whole polishing of the product is an upside to Nintendo who usually has the highest quality titles of first parties but in all honesty so often the delays are driven by marketing and not only development. I mean just look at TP as the perfect example it got delayed and delayed untill it wound up on Wii. Were those delays really quality driven or marketing driven. Origionally LOZ:TP was going to come out in 2005 however the GameCube had a few successful titles its origional expected launch time was November 2005. But the title got delayed according to Nintendo so it could be polished and improved. However it was supposed to see release early to mid 2006 again being delayed with it eventually being ported to Wii for launch.

But was it really being polished or ported. Titles take more then a couple months to port I've heard about many projects taking upwards of 6-months to port or requiring teams to be working on all the versions simultaneously. In my opinion Nintendo delayed LOZ:TP so that it could prop the GameCube up while promoting the Wii from the get go and never did it for development reasons at all. Development did improve the game between the origional launch date and the final but was not the driving force for the delay.  This and many other times when Nintendo titles have been mysteriously delayed to far better launch dates (Marketing wise) for development purposes have made me look at Nintendo as a buisness first and foremost and developer second.

Nobody can say Nintendo doesn't put quality ahead of quantity but I doubt that marketing isn't the driving factor in alot of Nintendo's delays. Infact if you read Nintendo Powers articles on developers who work for Nintendo you'll notice that when Nintendo sets a date they really drive their developers to meet those dates. In many interviews I have read in NP about LOZ:TP and other projects the developers spend whole days in the studio for months in advance to crunch time to meet the deadlines. So if Nintendo puts such a huge emphasis on making sure the products are done so far in advance to crunch I don't see completion as really the reason behind the delays.

Nintendo isn't shabby they don't announce a date untill they are more then 100% sure they can make that date.  So I doubt that marketing isn't the driving factor in alot of Nintendo's delays.