While I tend to avoid commenting on rumours before they are at least somewhat confirmed, or on the odd chance that it is discussed make sure to remind everyone that they are unofficial. On that note, there has been some news out of Nikkei Net in Japan that Nintendo is poised to announce a brand new Nintendo DS this Thursday at a simultaneous San Francisco / Tokyo press conference. Usually conferences of that kind of magnitude demonstrate that something big is in the pipes, but with Nintendo stressing that the DS would remain in its current state until sales faltered, consider this a lot of hope more than anything.
With the DS continually being the biggest selling console (handheld or not) month after month across all territories, it’s a bit of a shock to hear that there is a new one in the wings. Given the success of the DS Lite, however, and the growing competition in the PSP and now the mobile phone sector, it seems like somewhat of a good time to at least announce some tentative plans. The new DS is said to combine a video game system with a digital camera and portable music player, something that sounds very un-Nintendo considering their track record of toning down technology in favour of lower prices and sound gaming experiences. Given the fact that both have been tried, however, with the Gameboy Camera and the Play-Yan (made by a third-party), it would be interesting to see how these technologies could work as just a game system.
As likely as it seems, given the length that the DS has been out now, that a successor is in the wings, the idea of a multipurpose player is the next big thing for Nintendo seems a bit out of their normal line of thinking. Most people that use the system understand that it is a gaming platform before anything else, and unlike the PSP and iPod which are/were marketed as media items well before they were ever touted as the big gaming systems, Nintendo has never taken the road to combine the efforts of their competitors.
Something is likely to be announced this week, but given the speculation that seems to follow Nintendo around every turn when they make any kind of announcement, make sure to take this with a mountain of salt. Hopefully it will be something to pacify that elusive “hardcore” gaming crowd that seems to be frothing ever since the let-downs of E3 not too long ago.
I have always found the handheld gaming market to be particularly interesting as the generations are much more subtle than consoles, and often involve a series of evolutions than a revolution.
Nintendo started this trend with the Game Boy. The first Game Boy appeared back in 1989 and lasted through iterations including the Pocket, Light, Colour, and Advance. Each one providing a slimmer build, better screen, faster process etc, yet still playing the same games from the same cartridge. To put it in perspective, the Game Boy endured the lifespans of the NES, SNES, Gameboy (more of an aborted fetus than a lifespan), N64 and even the Gamecube.
Sony has taken cue from this trend as well, now into the third iteration of the PSP, again with slimmer builds, better screen, and additional homebrew protections. With a stated shelflife of approximately 10 years by Sony, we should expect to see at least two more versions before they move on to a true successor.
What is it that drives minor tweaks vs a hardware refresh? Is the hardware poorly planned compared to a full blown console, mainly is the medium or storage system evolving faster than the companies want ot adapt? Does it have to do with a still maturing portable market? Perhaps handhelds cater to a casual game unwilling to splurge on new tech every five years?
No edits for the loss. The aborted fetus I refered to was of course the Virtual Boy.
30 minutes on the VB and I felt like I was Cyclops from X-Men.
pew pew with the lasers from the eyes.
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Traditionally, yes, Nintendo has been very vigorous in their release cycle for handhelds. Of course, also remember that they pretty much owned the entire market back then, so they knew that whatever they released people would definitely take it on. Hindsight is always 20/20 when it comes to hardware, so iterations on battery life, brightness and other things are kind of inevitable, but it seems like Nintendo has no reason not to rest with the DS given the fact there isn’t much clamoring for much more than its already offering.