During the annual Gamestop manager’s meeting in Las Vegas, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime made a surprise appearance to announce some plans for his company. One of the bigger things revealed at the meeting was information on Wii Fit Plus. The president of the company confirmed the ‘expansion’ of Wii Fit is expected to arrive on stores shelves on October 4, 2009.

When the game debuts in stores, customers who don’t own a Wii Balance Board can pick up the original game with the board, along with the expansion pack for $99. Of course millions of people already own Wii Fit and if you’re one of them, on the same day you can pick up Wii Fit Plus for only $20.

While it doesn’t seem like a bad deal and it certainly isn’t, this just makes me wonder why Nintendo still doesn’t believe in downloadable content. Wii Fit Plus just reminds me of some DLC which includes some extra games. If Nintendo decided to have some sort of online service that allowed this, along with some storage device from the beginning, they could have been saving a decent amount of money. The company wouldn’t have to box and ship a retail version or at the very least, as many units.

Seriously, how many hardcore fans who bought Mario or Zelda also would have purchased extra DLC for Nintendo’s beloved franchises. I know the company is doing just fine and sitting on top of the world because of hardware sales for both the Wii and Nintendo DS. But how much more cash could they have generated if they simply implemented some sort online business structure like PSN and Xbox Live? When are they going to realize that online gaming isn’t the future but already a reality? I don’t know what else to say, but it’s amazing to see a company envision and create a new way we play games and they couldn’t include something as obvious as an easy to use online service.