Another thing to consider is what Nintendo might offer in the future as Wii Channels. All those might end up being Japanese as well, i.e. the browser now, voting channel, etc

Little little applications that you can run. If you buy Virtual Console games, its a Channel. Opera Browser is a channel. "Everybody Votes" is a channel. Actually everything you do is a channel, even the game you pop in, the Mii Plaza, the Photo Viewer, News, Weather etc. And this is how u buy apps and old games online.

Prepare to have all this in Japanese if you decide to save a couple of hundreds now. I guess you wouldn't mind if the Wii is purely for Wii gaming, you read Japanese, or you like tembak tembak...