I seriously doubt the bolded.  For one thing, the Wii and GameCube didn't even use DVD's.  It's a specialized disk developed in the same vein as DVD's, but not actual DVD's.  Nintendo didn't want to pay for the rights to use actual DVD technology.  Hence the "Nintendo Optical Disc," developed by Panasonic.  This is part of the reason that Nintendo never bothered with DVD playback in their machines (aside from that rare Panasonic-produced GameCube that played DVD's)--because their machines don't naturally read actual DVD technology and why Wii hackers have to, as I understand it, replace the laser to make the thing read DVD's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_optical_disc

Nintendo's harsh anti-piracy stance is why they have always been so ardent about having their own specific technology on their machines.

Also keep in mind that Nintendo has been working with a company called InPhase to develop Holographic Versatile Disc technology and readers for the technology.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InPhase_Technologies

Holographic Versatile Discs (HVD's) can reportedly hold somewhere between 500 gigabytes and two terabytes of data.  And Nintendo has been working on this thing for three-five years.

NOD *is* DVD, it's just a customized spec.  All consoles use a customized spec, only MS and Sony also include DVD movie spec (and paid for the license) while Nintendo doesn't, and they slapped a new name on their disc.  It's going to be the same story for Blu-ray in the next Nintendo console... it'll be Blu-ray in all but name (and ability to play movies).

I think we basically said the same thing.  DVD is essentially a brand name Nintendo didn't want to pay for, so they had Matsushita/Panasonic craft roughly the same thing for their use.  There's no guarantee the follow-up to the Wii will be Blu-Ray.  After all, the system probably won't be all that powerful and might not even need large storage space.  Microsoft does just fine with DVD format on the Xbox360.  

Nintendo's history is that of a company that seems forward-looking, but that always takes one or two steps back for every one or two forward.

N64?  Featured an early answer to aliasing, most powerful hardware of the time, and then they limited it all with cartridges.

GBA?  Up to then, the most powerful portable system yet, 32-bit hardware, highly effecient with batteries, and backwards compatible.  It also lacked a backlight (technology both Atari and Sega implemented in much older handhelds), and was missing two important face buttons.

GameCube?  Another substantially powerful machine, featured the most backwards-implementation of online at the time (which was later ignored completely)... and one unused port underneath (now rumored to be for some kind of 3-D add-on).  To be fair, I felt the GameCube was firing on all cylinders, but was crushed by the intense popularity of the PS2 and newcomer Xbox.

Wii?  Most of it's forward-looking was in motion control, and inclusion of Wi-Fi and a good idea for downloading games.  Then of course, Nintendo gimped the Wii in hardware tech, once again dropped the ball on the online mode, implemented those awful friend codes, later all but abandoned the Virtual Console, failed to include a harddrive, failed to court 3rd party developers, failed to include high-def, and for the first two-three years, largely failed to appeal to hardcore gamers who later abonded the system.

3DS?  Already, it's going to be compared to the NGP's immense power, the battery life is shockingly short, it's missing a second analog stick/nub, the touch-screen still only handles one input at a time when even many modern phones handle more than that--as will the NGP (front and back), and once again, the launch of another Nintendo system looks overly underwhelming, and is crowded with ports and remakes.  Not to mention that the 3DS is arguably the most expensive hardware they've ever made--seems they have some of Sony's ego behind that pricing.

This... is getting a little long-winded, so I'll try to get to my point--while I expect the next Nintendo system to be something amazing, I also fully expect them to simply drop the ball on a wide variety of things.  For one thing, Nintendo has noted that they don't understand the modern gaming culture as they are resistant to including an Achievement system in their machines (Sony is already planning on Trophies for the NGP).  I'm sure they'll finally do high-def, but I wouldn't be surprised to see only 720 (unless higher than 1080 surfaces, then Nintendo will peak at 1080), and unless Nintendo really does something with the HVD's, I don't expect anything other than DVD's the next time around.  If it is some copy of Blu-Ray technology, I wouldn't expect it to be as robust as actual Blu-Ray disks--meaning they'll probably hold less data.  I also don't imagine the next Nintendo console will be the tech powerhouse that they made in the past with the SNES, N64, GBA, and GameCube.  Part of their new operating formula is "good enough" tech (CPU/GPU) rather than "leading edge."

Physical media will still be the norm for quite some time?! Who knew?

PS: I did.

Blu-ray is dated technology at this point, it's established and cheap and thus exactly the sort of thing Nintendo would want to use.  One of their chief media partners (Panasonic) is also the largest IP holder on the standard (yes, ahead of Sony).  And the main draw for BD for Nintendo isn't even storage space (attractive as it might be), the main draw is security.  DVD's been cracked wide open, even Nintendo's variant of it has, there's basically no way they're doing DVD-based again.  

To be honest, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding your reasoning for Nintendo not using BD?  Or limiting to 720p actually... I agree with your notion that Nintendo goes for "good enough", but 1080p or full size BD are also hardly "leading edge" even today, nevermind whenever Wii 2 releases.  Nintendo's next system will easily outclass PS3 in all technical aspects, just as 3DS easily outclasses PSP in all technical aspects... technology doesn't stand still for 5 years, you need to get out of your apparent 2006 mindset on what's "leading edge".

That final somewhat personal slant was unnecessary.  There is no guarantee that the next console will outclass the PS3.  Nintendo saw that they made oodles of money with a system that barely manages to outclass the original Xbox (if it does at all, which I like to think it does), which hardware-wise, was last generation's PS3.  Plus, have you seen the images of the Unreal 3 engine?  Holy fucking crap.  This generation still has surprises in store where graphics and presentation are concerned.  What reason would Nintendo have to even bother trying to fully outclass the PS3 for the next system?  They make money either way, and increasingly powerful hardware in the past didn't guarantee Nintendo any success.  See the N64 and GameCube, both were very powerful machines.

Granted, of course the 3DS is more powerful than the PSP, but only a bit.  The thing that helps it is having something that the PSP doesn't have, which is a GPU seperate from the CPU.  In the PSP, it's all one big CPU, which is essentially the just a compact PS2 Emotion Engine.  Hell, the 3DS better be a bit more powerful than the PSP--that's, at this point, practically 11-year old technology.  But, the 3DS is only a little more powerful, overall, than the PSP.  We know this because the Wii is only a bit of a technological upgrade over the PSP/PS2, and the 3DS is noted to not be quite as powerful as the Wii.  

Essentially, aside from the 3-D, Nintendo did the same thing with the 3DS as with the Wii and DS--developed a new system with essentially generation-old technology.  I don't doubt that the 3DS will be graphically superior to the PSP (it has to be for the 3D processing anyway), but they didn't take a big leap with the hardware, and the overall hardware is roughly the same as the PSP.  And they won't take a big leap with the hardware on the next home console.

Even graphically, the 3DS is inferior to the PSP in some aspects.  This is essentially the third game system Nintendo has made with hardware technology from the last generation.  GameCube, Wii, 3DS.  

My note about Nintendo not going over 720 is simple speculation, and more "I don't think Nintendo cares" than anything else.  Even with 1080 taking off, from what I've seen, only the PS3 operates at that as a standard, and for, like, the first two years or something, very few PS3 games ran with 1080 as their native resolution.  Most still ran at 720, which will be "good enough" for Nintendo.  If they do use a BD technology, then maybe they'll go higher, but again, I don't think they'll use BD.  If it's not the HVD's, then they're cooking something up with Panasonic we won't be aware of until the next system is about to launch.  We'll see, and for what it's worth, I hope Nintendo makes some great and impressive choices, but given their history, they won't. 

They always do something stupid, something ridiculous, something that will leave all of us scratching our heads.  They'll be things we're all just thrilled with on the next console, but like the Wii, DS, GameCube, N64, etc, there will be things those of us who love Nintendo will be arguing to defend in the face of more asinine choices.  We were all thrilled by the promise of the motion control and had to deal with the half dozen ways that the Wii was mind-bogglingly inferior to the Xbox360 and PS3.  

First off, I just want to say I'm sorry if you took anything I said as any sort of personal slight.  That wasn't the intent and if that's how you read into it, then apologies.

I also think we're basically saying the same thing here in essence, only I think we have different views on where the available technology roadmap actually is and what Nintendo's priorities in terms of technology are.  Nintendo is most definitely an economically oriented console maker and they'll cut corners wherever they can.  I think we can all agree on that, and that the Wii 2 will most likely be a profit generating platform from day one.  The thing is, Nintendo will pretty easily be able to put out a Wii 2 that matches or exceeds the current console in pretty much every regard, charge $299, and still make an attractive margin. And yes, there's no guarantees (there never are), but the likelihoods lean overwhelmingly in that direction.  And why wouldn't they, especially after the 3rd party rejection they've been receiving console side this generation?  Why would they want to keep putting up any possible obstacle to support... is that the strategy they've pursued with 3DS? 

Most PS3 games today don't output in 1080p/i, in fact looking it up less than 20 retail PS3 games render in native 1080p/i (1920 x 1080), and when they do they almost never use AA.  Several 360 games also render in native 1080p/i btw.  Still, much like the course Nintendo took with Wii (480p/i mandated), I think we'll see them take a similar approach with Wii 2, essentially using "last gen" tech and speccing at the upper tier and standards for that.  That means probably 1080p/i mandated and full size (customized) Blu-ray (HVD is a non-starter, Nintendo will definitely not adopt a Chinese standard, and the idea that they would is probably the most controversial possibility in this entire thread)... these would literally be the equivalents to Wii's 480p/i mandated and full size (customized) DVD standards, and there's an extremely low cost technology barrier in both cases with the timelines we're looking at (Wii in 2006, Wii 2 likely in 2012).  Nintendo will probably do this, and it'll be cheap for them to do so too.

I also think you're a bit confused in regards to the PSP/3DS power ratio.  While both are certainly within the same general "generation" of hardware class, 3DS isn't a modest increase either... it has double the memory available for game content, it's ROM sizes already can up to quadruple UMD (8GB max, and likely to grow beyond that), it's pushing roughly double the geometry PSP is from what we've seen (it has to for 3D display), with appreciably higher texture quality and resolution, in 32bit color with zero dithering, usually at a locked 30fps (often 60fps in 2D mode) and it's throwing around shader effects that PSP simply can not emulate on top of this, effects that no last gen system can even (Xbox and Wii included)... in terms of previous home consoles, it's almost like the disparity we'd see going from Dreamcast directly to Xbox.  In fact, I'm somewhat curious exactly what "aspects" you believe 3DS to be graphically inferior to PSP in?  Can you tell us what those are? 

Ther vertex performance is lower, which translates to ever-so-slightly lower poly-counts for characters in the game.  Now, if the 3DS's texture and mapping abilities exceed the PSP (which, to be fair, early Resident Evil screenshots do indicate such a thing), then that can easily make up for lower poly counts.  It's a pretty standard trick that good enough textures and bump mapping can hide lower poly counts.

The other thing, where did you hear that the 3DS cards would go up to 8GB?  I'd previously read only 2 GB.  Frankly, I don't see why they couldn't reach 16 GB as far as I'm concerned as the technology doesn't seem that different from SD card technology, and those can reach 32 GB easily.  Even the micro SD cards reach 8 and (I think) 16 GB, which, growing up with the computers and technology that I did grow up with--is just mind-blowing.  

If this card technology continues the way it has, Nintendo (or MS or Sony) could theoretically forgoe a laser and disk-based console entirely for the next generation.  Rather than DVD's, BD's, or HVD's (which only Nintendo seemed to be working on), companies could use modified flash media and put the games on those.  I think it'd be great to see full-blown retail games on some kind of credit card sized physical flash media.  Console effeciency would go up, as reading direct from flash media would be energy and RAM-effecient, no laser or motors would keep console heat and noise down, and who knows where they could stop where storage growth is concerned?  

If you're thinking of the old TurboGrafx Hu-Cards, that's exactly what I'm picturing, except based on SD card flash media.  If a regular SD card could do 32GB of space, then who's to say that a next-gen "SD Hu-Card" couldn't do 64 or 128 GB?  Downloadable add-ons to games could be written directly to the media, and load times could effectively be a thing of the past.  The DS and 3DS have shown the potential future with this technology as DS game cards have got to be shockingly cheap to develop--and Sony agrees since the NGP will utilize similar technology.

The downside would be losing DVD/Blu-Ray movie playback, and backwards compatibility to previous consoles, but for less heat, complicated machinery, loading times, and more storage space--why aren't they working on it now?  Now that's a great fucking idea.  /rant

I'm a little curious where those specs come from, given Nintendo's never revealed comparable peak theoreticals for 3DS hardware?  Are they just using "off the shelf" Pica200 specs for the comparison?

Even still, it's pretty clear from the games we've seen that actual polycounts are at the very least comparable in game between PSP and 3DS, which means the actual 3DS polygon maximum must be significantly higher given it needs to draw everything twice for stereoscopic 3D.  Sony's architecture efficiency must be absolute shit on PSP given that, so where's the bottleneck?

The info on 3DS cards going to 8GB comes directly from the manufacturer (Macronix).  Actually, if 3DS cards scale at the same rate DS cards did, then their ceiling may hit 128GB by the time the platform's done.

A 128GB 3DS card.  That would be impressive.  The chart came from IGN, part of a feature they did comparing the DS, 3DS, PSP, and iPad or iPhone.  As I recall, it was based on rough estimate hardware specs from developers who'd played with 3DS dev kits/hardware.  

The main thing is that while some hardware numbers change, actual hardware grows more powerful what with all the tweaks to energy and effeciency, etc.  A modern 32-bit engine would be vastly more impressive than a 32-bit engine from the heyday of the Playstation.  Computers get more and more powerful, but for the most part, still use 32-bit operating systems--they're just newer, and to dumb it down a lot, "made better."  

So, while the hardware tech of the 3DS may not be, on paper, huge leaps over the PSP--and yes, I know I noted this as a kind of "step backward" for Nintendo, at the very least, it's pretty much all new hardware (something that even the Wii can't boast since it was just a Supercharged GameCube).  As the Unreal 3 engine is showing, the X360 and PS3 likely have untold levels of graphical show-off power buried within that we haven't seen yet.  With any luck, the 3DS will get the support it deserves, and we'll be delivered some truly phenomenal pieces of software.  If the new RE games are any sign, that system has immense potential.  

This might sound somewhat ironic, or contradictory of my earlier posts.  I've got high hopes for the 3DS, and have had mine reserved for a few weeks.  I hope the raw, generalized, hardware specs have more power than they appear to on paper.  This doesn't change my view that Nintendo always takes bizarre, sometimes awkward steps backward (seriously, still a single-input touch screen??), but I'm really looking forward to the 3DS.