Well, I was going to come in here and post something extremely sarcastic but there is no need...since everyone beat me to it. It's standard business practice. Sony and MS started working on the PS4 and Nextbox as soon as the PS3 and 360 were completed.

Must be a slow news day.

All the hardware teams do this. They're not just out of a job for 5 years. They started working on the Wii, 360, and PS3 the day after the GameCube, XBox, and PS2 dropped. This means they've been working on the 3DS since the DS came out in 2004. Of course, most of that time is probably R&D in several directions.

Did you see all the controller concepts for the Wii before they decided on the TV remote-with-nunchuck style? They had a million crazy horrible ideas. That's why I love those guys. They're really nuts.

lol so this is news?

I dont understand why people consider this news. Do people really think that Hardware development stops or pauses after launch?

It goes to reason that nintendo has a large human resource dedicated to hardware development. Do people really believe that nintendo fires them all once the new system is launched and then re-hires talent before the next launch just to fire them again a few months again in some kind of walmart-esque turnover orgy???

Or do you think that instead of starting the next HW development cycle immediately after launch nintendo keeps high-priced talent on payroll doing nothing until the pause in development ends?

I cant make sense of this!

No, but I would love to see that! Do you have any links?

Of course!! I knew this since i bought my Wii. Nintendo is always looking for new hardware, the same with almos every company (SONY and Microsoft).

Considering Nintendo didn't fired their hardware team, they should be working in a new console for quite some time now.

OMG GUYS!! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS BUT I HAVE TO TELL YOU.

I FOUND OUT RAIN IS WET!!!