Soundwave on 26 March 2014
The 3DS is past "half way through" its life cycle. It's over 3 years old now. If Nintendo debuts a new handheld in late 2015 for example it would be about par for the course.
The DS just had an abnormally long life cycle because its the best selling hardware ever made (lol), well very close to the PS2 anyway, the 3DS is nowhere close to that, so it will be phased out much earlier.
Also the DS didn't have smartphones/tablets really destroying their marketshare, the need for a new Nintendo handheld is more urgent I would say than even the DS rushed to the market in 2004 to compete against the PSP. Smartphones/tablets represent a far larger threat to Nintendo than PSP ever did.
