but i heard people have fun with them.

And, for Zucas,

you are a gentleman. One of the nicest reads since I'm part of this community.

Same for Wii shovelware... the difference is that the Wii had good, even if few, AAA titles to drive its sales as a mainstream gaming machine.

iPhone has ZERO high quality games that makes people think "Oh, I am gonna buy this gadget because that game is awesome. And the machine is also a phone. Nice" 

People buy it because it's a nice phone with some cool apps, not for it's gaming capabilities. While the iPhone stays like that, it won't be any threat to Nintendo.

"iPhone software sales are above PSP software"

Yeah, that doesn't mean the iPhone is doing that good. It is the PSP that is doing really bad.

oh the irony.

I think that this is awesome news and because the 3d that will incorporated will be like the one in some new digital cameras and not true 3d that actually jumps out of the screen, it will be called a gimmick just like the touch screen when the DS came out and the motion when the WII came out but again, I think Nintendo will be laughing all the way to the bank and competitors will be playing catch up once again. I also believe that Apple will do better than the psp 2 during the next generation and will the first to impliment this tech in thier new ipods and Iphones.

In the past related to Nintendo’s game announcements is how Nintendo has moved towards a compressed schedule from announcement of a product to it being released; and this is (potentially) so that the "Hype" (for lack of a better word) and the marketing are as focused as possible for maximum effect. Now consider the structure of the release of the Nintendo DS and Wii; with the Nintendo DS and Wii there was an explanation/teaser of what the system was that was very light on details and got people interested, followed by the big showing of the system at an expo, followed a few months later by the system’s release. When you combine the two things together the announcement at the end of March may not seem so arbitrary.

We got the teaser this week, and while no one knows what it means everyone is talking about it. People are looking for explanations of the technology and soon enough there will be a flood of fake mark-ups, specifications and other rumours peaking everyone’s interest.

In a few months, after the initial wave of excitement has worn off, E3 will happen and people will be dying to try it out to see how well it works; and Nintendo’s E3 keynote will probably be the most anticipated event of the year. While Sony and Microsoft fans may not like to hear this, it is likely that there will be another 4 hour line-up to see the 3DS while Natal and Move are readily available to try; and a large portion of this will be that the 3DS will be an unknown commodity with unknown capabilities and (previously) unannounced games.

A couple of months later, as people get tired of dissecting the expos (E3, TGS, etc.) Nintendo will shift into full launch mode and people will begin to discuss launch line-ups and the advertising; and soon after the system will release to massive line-ups and shortages.

Basically, from what I can tell, their approach may very well be designed to do a focused blitz so that the most important gaming news story for the next 6 months is the 3DS.

That was not an ironic or sarcastic post.

I think the 3DS has more to do with game development. Does any developer know how to make a game that's going to be viewed in 3D? Will the old camera angles work? The 3DS gives Nintendo's Engineers and Software developers an opportunity to develop tool sets and experiment with 3D technology before their competitors, Sony's and Microsoft's first party developers. This could be a very big advantage in terms of knowledge and Ideas.

The iPhone is a different beast than most other products on the market. While it has the capabilities of a multi-media device (iPod), gaming machine, notebook, phone, camera and countless other devices it really doesn’t fully replace most of these devices for most people. It is the ultimate jack-of-all trades, and people love to carry it around to suit their needs as they change on the fly but when they want something to fill a certain need they go to the dedicated device.

In terms of games this means that the Nintendo DS will probably lose some game sales to the iPhone but (in my opinion) these will most likely be the quick pick-up-and-play games that are enjoyable in 5 minute bursts. On something like city transit, you will see the super-ultra-casual gamer pull out their iPhone to play a Tetris-like game while people who are more interested in gaming in general will probably go to the Nintendo DS, PSP, or the upcoming 3DS.

Exactly this. Nice post.