It's not speculation, the homebrewers DID make the system take SDHC.
Its not a question of whether it can be done, it is a question of
how it is done.
Was it done by physically opening up a WII system and reactivating the component through the hardware?
Or was it done by a software modification alone?
Lets take a somewhat relevant example, their was a report awhile back on NWR about an Nintendo official saying that every WII has built in DVD playing capabilities but was disabled on each system before shipping to stores.
Could it be true that the WIIder is SDHC but has been disabled?
Certainly but the problem here is that the specific Nintendo spokesperson also pointed out the WII's video playback cannot be reactivated through an update alone.
This is almost certainly true about the SDHC capabilities as well.
It all comes dow to the fact that it is not technically feasible for Nintendo to get all 40 some million WII's now sold back to the factory floor to be re modified.
Again if it is a purely software modification, then they can certainly make this available through their automatic update system.
Another indication that it is probably not a software mod; is that they would have done it already considering the amount of money potentially lost by slowing online sales versus the near inexpensive cost of having a program distributed through an automatic update.
I mean even if it is only one in 20 WII owners wanting such an upgrade, thats still 2 million customers purchasing more then one game a month online, or around 1000 wii points, 10$ or at least 20 million dollars a month that would take a knowledgeable WII system programmer paid say even 10,000$ dollars a month (most likely)less then a month to write and effectively distribute to all 2 million customers before said month has even ended!
Seriously if this was the case, then after the WII gift upgrade this SDHC upgrade really should have been next on the list for upgrades helping maximize games sales.
Never the less I have seen very little info about about how homebrewers are making their WIIders SDHC compatible through a programming mod alone and stick with the more likely reality is that it takes a hardware activation to make this possible and thus is not the solution that Iwata is talking about.