Nintendo has obviously abandoned Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of lateral thinking with withered technology. This philosophy gave Ninendo's portables unparalleled battery life compared to it's competition and it seems like this may not be the case with the 3DS. The winner of the handheld race has always had great battery life as it's very desirable feature in a machine that is supposed to be portable. 3D and heavy graphical output are not Nintendo's friend. They are at best gimmicks that will win over a few niche handheld players.
The analog stick is placed in the primary position leading me to believe that many games will be 3D games which will be competing against the PS3/360/PSP type of games. These games tend to lend themselves better to consoles as most aren't very pick up and play. Just like many wouldn't pick up a PSP because it competed too much with those types of games that can be better enjoyed at home on a huge screen with the best online services and I think the same will be true of the 3DS.
The DS got the software that was interesting and different mainly because it was nigh impossible to develop traditional blockbuster style titles on it. This is no longer the case.
Nintendo has not shown any new expanded audience software. The DS was losing to the PSP until the likes of Nintendogs and Brain Training. While Nintendo may have more of those specific ip's ready they need to focus on people they didn't already get playing those games. In order to beat the DS they will have to expand gaming even more and I don't see the Nintendogs Cats and another iteration of Animal Crossing, and Brain Training to be doing that.
I believe that Nintendo is now being over estimated in the same fashion that Sony was before they came to the portable game. The DS succeeded because it offered many experiences that were not available anywhere else because of it's ancient innards. There are many people competing for the slice of pie that the 3DS is going after.
I don't think Sony will take these opportunities and utilize them as best as possible, but it is a great opportunity for them. I see Sony making sure it gets IPhone games and that PSP2 has some version of UE on it so that it can share those 3rd party development resources. I also see alot of 3DS exclusives jumping the wagon as there is very little reason for 3rd parties to not do what they enjoy doing and supporting non-Nintendo platforms. If Sony can achieve price parity with the App store and keep up with the large number of apps then I see them being more successful than they where with the PSP.
With Apple and Verizon getting ready to make the iPhone available to it's network in addition AT&T's I can see that outselling them both combined in hardware and software much like Job's would boast about during the summer months.
The Ipad has an analog stick now and I have only heard positive things about it. Does it count as a console now? Will the iPhone get a smaller version?
I hereby ready my flame shield as I know this is not a popular opinion.
