There is a benefit of having the life of consoles over-lap to ensure that you’re getting steady profits to offset the costs of a platform release. If Nintendo’s handheld and console are both profitable when they replace one of them, and they both will continue to sell well and move software while the new system establishes itself, Nintendo will be able to remain profitable even when they’re absorbing the costs of the new system. What this means is that it is unlikely that Nintendo would wait for one of their platforms to begin to struggle before they replaced it; although, with the damage cutting a generation short does, they would probably let a console struggle until it became appropriate to replace it.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Nintendo would release a new system this year; but the primary question isn’t whether their systems are selling well, as much as it is whether there is value in replacing the platform. While this may sound silly given Nintendo’s recent obliviousness towards greater processing power, the hardware that is available today for a low cost handheld in itself offers Nintendo value. It is possible that Nintendo could release a platform which they could port Gamecube and/or Wii games to, and they could use to consolidate development resources across both platforms.

Super Gameboy Micro.

Do you realize you are not reading my post properly? When did I say Nintendo is making another console because of third party needs?

Read carefully, I said that 3rd parties may know something we don't hence their overall lack of announcements for the Wii since last year. Now what do you say? BTW it's not the first time you quote me and try to explain me something totally irrelevant to my post, I'll await an intelligent answer.

The discussion of the topic is about the rumor, and your post is about the valitity of the rumor, namely from the third party side. You question third parties to see if one is coming or not, but the decision comes from Nintendo, so third parties are not relevant to discussion. Nintendo makes the call, so neither one nor two are applicable. Questioning their motives doesn't matter becuase you have to question would Nintendo do it, or better yet, would it be a logical conclusion. If yes, then you can question the validity of the rumor from their sides as it is possible. If no, there there is no discussion as Nintendo probably wont do the action. You have to question Nintendo before you can question Nintendo.

Actually, the third pillar statement was not a way to back track if the DS failed against the PSP. Nintendo did not know that the DS was going to be successful as it has become. They thought that it would sell along side the GBA but that did not happen because the DS was a big hit. This led Nintendo to have to manufacture more and the GBA was subsequently killed off to make room for the DS.

The GBA micro cost Nintendo almost Nothing. It was just a redesigned GBA with out the backwards compatibility with the GameBoy color and the original Gameboy. The lack of backwards compatibility is why the Micro died.  The DSi XL is a big deal. It continues the DSi line of consoles and attempts to expand it's audience even more, which it will.

A new portable may not ride the success of the DS. The DS did not ride the success of the GBA. Instead the success of the DS led publishers, developers, and Nintendo to abandon the GBA and focus on the DS. Remember Nintendo could have dropped the price of the GBA to $50.00 and it would have sold extremely well but they stated that the DS was young and they did not want to undermine its market. Furthermore the DS launched with more third party software than Nintendo software and was losing to the PSP, after the PSP launched,  in sales monthly until Nintendo began to focus on developing titles for the DS. IGN even had an article a few months after the launch of the DS stating "Where are the Nintendo games." What I'm saying is that Nintendo will have to comit development resources behind this new platform. They were unable to do it with the Gameboy color and the GBA. How would they be able to do it now.

The third pillar remark was nothing more then smoke and mirrors, people bought the DS because of the GBA momentum, it was a new handheld and could play previous and upcoming GBA games most people refered to it as the new gameboy in stores if it truely was a third pillar and didn't use the GBA momentum it would never of had a GBA slot to begin with. The DS was never really losing to the PSP either, PSP just enjoyed the usual launch sales all consoles have then took a back seat when the hype died down. They can easily overlap the two handhelds now they've raked in more money then many companies in even bigger industries and they have the momentum and are in a better position in the market then years ago.

As far as things go the third pillar is as relevant as Sony saying they have a 10 year plan for their console, besides which the's no point in speculating it because I don't see new hardware coming anytime soon.

And that is a key indicator. There is currently a void of announced Nintendo titles for the DS, and it would be high time for them to transition over. I bet even the new Pokemon is going to be forwards-compatible.

I can't see Nintendo announcing a new platform at the GDC. Surely it would be too early and would leave the door open for competitors to copy, something Nintendo always goes out of its way to avoid.

Truth be told, Nintendo really hasn't had much for the DS since Pokemon. They released two Zelda games and put Kirby in the holiday season on year.

Not sure if it was mentioned yet, but this did come from Twitter. Has anything substancial come from Twitter?

You are making things up now. A Super Robot wars game has been announced, Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 has been announced, The new pokemon game, and  Sonic and sega allstars racing are just a few of the annouced games. Besides Publishers and Developers announce titles all the time. There's really no specific time frame for game announcements. E3 usually has a lot of game announcements but other than that Developers and Publishers tend to wait to hype a game up shortly before it's released.

I do think you are trying to hard to find some reason for this rumor to be true. The DS is still selling incredibly well all it needs is more software. The DSI XL still has not be released in the West and will most assuredly spur DS sales higher. Why would Nintendo announce a new platform before the DSI XL has a chance to sale? It does not make sense.