It must be pretty darn easy being an analyst at one of those fancy Wall Street firms. Take this story, that Nintendo may well launch an on-demand video service for the Wii here in North America next year. Japan’s Nikkei reported the same thing nearly two months ago, but it’s only now that someone at Lazard Capital Markets has officially predicted such a store for the North American market.

Next time you’re at Sports Authority applying for a hunting license, you could pick up replacement Wii Remote or even the Wii Fit as the retailer is getting into the gaming business. But seriously, this kind of makes sense and has apparently been in the works for months.

You might not want to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to pick up that Wii. Toys “R” Us is running a deal this coming weekend where you can pick up a Wii system and a Ready for Play Wii Pack for $249.

Nintendo’s generally vocal president, Reggie Fils-Aime, made headlines today when again he denied that Nintendo was working on the Wii HD. He said, “I don’t know how forcefully we can say there is no Wii HD.” That’s pretty clear, but it’s also mostly a lie. What do you expect the man to say two months before Christmas? “Psst, don’t buy the $200 Wii for your kid this year. We’ve got something real special coming in a few months. You’re going to want that instead.”

Does anyone seriously think that Nintendo is not building a high-def capable system? You can’t even buy a SD TV larger than 20 inches anymore. Reggie probably told the truth when he said “there is no Wii HD” as it’s probably not named Wii HD, but there has to be some sort of high-def gaming system in the works. If there isn’t, Nintendo is in trouble.

So you live in Kansas, and you want to learn how to snowboard before that big trip to the mountains. What do you do? Well, you can always wait to get up the hill to buy some lessons, or you can pick up a Thrustmaster T-Freestyle NW controller, and you’ll be carving down a half-pipe in no time.

Poor Wii owners (I’m one of them). There will be no Modern Warfare 2 for us. In a recent interview, Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling explained that the Wii’s relatively underpowered innards in comparison to the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 make it impossible to replicate “the cinematic experience” across all platforms.

While the Nintendo Wii continues to have a stranglehold on console sales, both worldwide and in the United States, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are battling it out for the the second place position for year-to-date sales. Just a little over two months ago, Sony announced that they would be slashing the price of their game console, the PS3, to $299. Microsoft quickly followed suit, and in just ten days dropped the price of their most expensive console, the Xbox 360 Elite, to $299. Nintendo, who has sold nearly double the number of consoles worldwide as these two, decided to lower the price of the Wii on September 27th to $199: this was the first time since its inception that the Wii has had a price cut. All three console manufacturers hoped that the decrease in price would help them to increase sales and finish the year on a strong note. The results have been mixed: while all three consoles have seen an increase in sales, the PS3 has seen astonishing growth in the US and abroad, and has wrestled the second-place position in worldwide YTD sales from the 360. As for the Xbox, even in its upgraded Elite form it has seen only minimal gains since the price drop.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said recently that his company would be testing out demo downloads of certain WiiWare titles this month. It’s unclear if this test program will only be for Wii owners in Japan or if those of us here in the U.S. would be able to participate as well.

I think we’ve learned something today: not to buy stuff off the TV. QVC was selling, last night, a Nintendo Wii, Go Play Circus Star Games, and a bunch of accessories (golf club, tennis racket, etc.) QVC wanted $362.97 for the bundle, but if you look at the retail price for all this, it comes out to $239.97. Yes, that’s a $140 premium. For what?

Shocked? Not me. The constant one-upsmanship inherent in the weirder-than-weird world of Wii accessories and software will never, ever, ever end. Take this new entrant, due out in Australia next month. It’s called Baby and Me and features, you guessed it, an actual doll with a snap-in port for a Wii controller.

‘Twas more than two years ago when some dopey radio show in California held a “hold your wee for a Wii” contest. Not the kind of publicity Nintendo wanted, no. A woman died, you’ll recall. Well, now a California jury has awarded $16.5 million to the woman’s family. That’s it, don’t click Read More because there’s nothing else. And there’s no pic because, come on, not necessary.

It hasn’t been the best couple of months for Nintendo. Profits were down for the six months leading up to September, which the company blames on the strong yen and the Wii’s price cut. Net sales, too, were down, some 34.5 percent. Fair enough, and those reasons are likely to explain Nintendo’s situation, but is there something else going on? I know Pat Buchanan, the older gentlemen that he is, always uses the phrase “the chickens have come home to roost,” and I think it’s applicable here. Perhaps Nintendo’s strategy of selling the Wii to the “casual” crowd (housewives and the like, to simplify this) has finally run out of gas?

Skip to 1:00 mark and prepare to be amazed at the multiplayer Excitebike Wii port. Seriously, there are people out there that will buy a Wii just for this WiiWare game and the side-scrolling retro action. I might. Click through for the awesome trailer.

/>Sorry America, it seems like Nintendo doesn’t love you anymore. Particularly given the continual stream of Wii related products that won’t be coming to the US. The latest example: the black Wii Sports Resort bundle.

Oh, this is embarrassing. A man on the Home Shopping Network is demonstrating how much fun it is to play Wii Sports with one of those plastic tennis racket accessories. Gotta make the sale! And it all goes well until he raises his arm and goes for the serve…

See that right there? That’s a Wii peripheral. If not for the blaze orange tip, one might mistake it for an MP5 submachine gun. Spotted at a Hong Kong trade show by Pocket-lint, it’s “a 1:1 scale Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun for the Wii.”

If you’re a Wii owner and you’ve been thinking to yourself, “Boy, there aren’t nearly enough available accessories for my console,” then maybe you’d enjoy blowing off some steam on a full-size Wii-compatible exercise bike. Yes, a bike.