I believe the sole time Nintendo could be hurt in the portables front is when the PSP launched. Sony was in an unstoppable spree, killing SEGA and dumping Nintendo to last. The momentum and hype was tremendous; even initial sales for both portables were comparable.

Now, Sony will follow on a very weak PSP, with Nintendo launching the successor to the best selling system EVER. Quite the opposite from some years ago, yet I have severe doubts if Sony can pull a Nintendo this time.

In my humble opinion, the PSP2 will collapse, and certainly won't reach the original in sales or momentum. As for Apple and the iPhone, the phone gaming industry is like the PC gaming industry to me; without someone to handle the wheel, you can't hope to beat the market leader, especially now that it's stronger than ever.

I believe that what started to "kill" the PSP was Brain Trainning and Nintendogs. Those were 2 unique pieces of software only available on the Nintendo system and could not be mimicked on the PSP for the lack of touchscreen.

While this unique games were doing a splash on the charts, PSP was pretty much relying on PS2 ports or games very similar to those available on a PS2.

Then the arrival of New Super Mario Bros and DS Lite was pretty much the final nail in the PSP coffin that set Nintendo as the leader for this gen in the portable market.

No matter what happens at E3, this announcement has ensured that one of the main things journalists and fans will be looking at is the new 3D handheld from Nintendo. And since all we have is an announcement, once we actually see the thing, it'll be a whole new round of news, talk and focus. I think they played the cards quite well there.

As for why announce it early? Probably to to put the pressure on devs to start making games for it now. The PSP, after an initial sprint, dwindled but stayed alive thanks to the support of RPG and more adult oriented games. Now that the new DS will have the processor power, to push graphics, the analogue stick to manouvre in 3D games and the boundary pushing 3d technology ON top, of what has already made the DS great, they're gunning for every bit of the PSP's market. So why not do whatever helps to get devs making those games for your system instead of the other guys.

I suspect that in addition to this, an early announcement and a generally positive reaction from core gamers so far has a lot to do with Nintendo wanting to entice some of the core gamer development to the 3DS from launch. They need to advertise to developers as much as to consumers as its not like the former often have any more information on these things than the latter and now they've advertised they can afford to get dev kits out wholesale.

Personally I think they've won E3 and they will likely win sole domain over the gaming market as the 3DS has probably just killed the PSPs gaming side as the other multimedia devices start to erode the PSPs multimedia/utility market segments even further. Yes its likely everyone will be talking about 3D this E3 and Nintendo has an excellent shot at this. Of course there'll be substantial excitement when GT5 is revealed with excellent 3D support however that will be tempered by the fact that a new 3D TV costs upwards of $1000 + you need to wear dinky glasses.

Given the rumours, I wouldn't also be surprised if the 3DS is repositioned as a portable 3D movie player, especially if they can put the two sub 4" screens next to each other to make a single 7" screen as there is already a lot of enticing content coming out of hollywood in 3D and the improvements in flash memory make it possible to store quite a few of them.

Yup Zucas is one of my favorite posters on this site because he isn't a biased prick.

good analysis. i agree, the main reason for this early announcement, is probably due because they found out that the psp2 uses 3D technology as well, and they wanted to be recognized as the first mover, and not the second mover. This is also a means to compete vs the iPHONE. As a personal opinion, i'm not hyped one bit for this, though i remain open, and if nintendo finally has some impressive tech, they might win be back after one decade.

I wonder if Nintendo will bash the 3D that needs glasses in a marketing strategy to try to show themselves superior by having auto-3D tech their new console while Sony can't do that.

I think this post is a valid point that shouldn't be glossed over. One of the thing that Iwata has said before is that Nintendo WILL compete and defend it's "turf" He was especially sayin' this after E3 oh'9, when Microsoft, and Sony introduced their motion peripherals.

...Seeing the iPhone as a "threat", I can see Nintendo again looking to "disrupt" the market again.

Thanks for the compliment.

I have a feeling that Nintenod's E3 will be epic