Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz, executive VP and COO of EA' s worldwide studios, David Gardner, has revealed that the publisher believes the console will retail for around US $170 in North America.
as for your QUEZtion , they' ve optimised their performance with cooling solution and power suppliy and everything.It' s close to launch and they' re going to produce their system pretty soon.
additional amount of ram would mean nothing if Wii is tweaked to achieve it' s peak performance by now.
Wii is so small that anything like a " small HDD" put inside, could change size of the entire unit -and force them to redesign it.
It' s not about graphics though so I think making it cheaper is a good idea.
I just hope that EU price won' t be much higher ( DS Lite costs nearly 200$ while it' s 129$ in the US, 114$ in Japan and about 120$ in Australia)