I think it was a good time to announce it.
The overlap scheme has worked for Nintendo nicely
Announcing it in march vs at E3 would lead me to believe that someone else may be trying to do 3D and Nintendo wanted to get the jump on them.

Business wise...its beautiful
In my opinion, The current DS is following the GBA in terms of life cycles.
(The DS having 4 major iterations instead of 3)

GBA - 2001 --- GBA sp - 2003 ----- GBA Micro - 2005

DS - 2004 --- DS lite - 2006 ----- DSi - 2008jp ---- DSi LL (XL) - 2009jp / 2010usa

3DS - 2010? / 2011?

The two consoles (gba / ds) overlap as GBA was still running quite strong in 2005 and into 2006
The main backward compatibility aspect stopped with the DSi and the DSi LL giving the GBA an effective 6+ year life cycle.
The obvious success of the DS will give it at least a 6+ year cycle

Nintendo replicated the evolution of the two systems very closely.
GBA was redesigned to the SP to feel better and added small features, and the Micro was for a niche market.

DS was redesigned once to the "Lite" to feel better and add small features, and a second time to "DSi Lite " to allow for camera use and the down-loadable content aspect of the system to add DSiware.
The DSiXL is (I believe) for a niche market


The DS and the 3DS will hopefully have that same cross-over / overlap mentality that will surely benefit long time users of the system. If you can re-download your DSi games as well as play the DS library of games...
It should start the same trend that GBA and DS had before it.

I don't see what is wrong, there are 4 PSPs and 4 DSs

PSP 1000 (Fat) [December 2004]

PSP 2000 (slim) [September 2007]

PSP 3000 [October 2008]

PSP Go [October 2009]

DS Fat [December 2004]

DS Lite [March 2006]

DSi [November 2008]

DSi XL [November 2009]

Apple is even worse. Also, 3DS is not a revision like the DSi.

While I don't entirely agree with you, it does seem odd from a gamers perspective.

However, when one looks at it from perhaps a business or investor relations perspective, I think it makes sense why they chose to do it now. Fiscal New Year and all that jazz.

This is my thought as well.

It is a different product at a different market.

Mike from Morgantown

Yes, this was odd timing for Nintendo, who is usually very hush hush about new technology. However, they probably just wanted to announce it before E3.

I still would like to get a DSi XL myself simply because of the double sized screens. Especially before Dragon Quest IX comes out. However, this announcement might keep me from doing so if they announce the new '3DS' will be coming out before 2011.

Not to mention people would be PISSED if a week after they bought a new DS, Nintendo was like "Oh, another one is coming"

Now individuals can make an intelligent decision