They won't stop selling the DS anytime soon.  Not with how well it continues to sell, even with the 3DS out.  I say there will be at least another 1 1/2 - 2 years with the DS on the market.  I also think Nintendo will at least wait til after the holiday season to lower the price of the 3DS, just to see how well it sells at max profit and how well the NGP does.

I honestly think PS Suite will be the wild card here. Depending on how well it does, sony might hit a real gold mine

Agreed on price, but they've already stopped producing the DS lite, so I wouldn't put it past them.

Well, Nintendo stopped producing the DS Lite for the same reason Sony stopped production on the PSPGo, it wasn't selling well.  If you look at Media Create's numbers for Week 4/18-4/24, the PSPGo sold only 265 units, while the DS Lite only sold 283 units.  Both Sony and Nintendo decided both consoles weren't worth the extra hassle and money to produce and ship them.

People are probably gonna think I'm crazy but I see the handheld market as being a tie dispite the 3DS 9 months to a year head start. 

I see the NGP releasing at 249 to 279 for the WiFi only version and 329 to 349 for the 3g enabled version.  I know many think that I'm lowballing on the price but if you look at what it costs to manufacture smartphones it isn't all that big.  There just seem to be huge markups.  I think at 249 model may incur a miniscule loss at worst.  If we have revisions like the PSP I see the manufacturing costs dropping swiftly.

The PSP has major support from Japan. Given that no 3DS games seem to be lighting up the charts I don't forsee anything taking that support away(Even Zelda which is the closest thing to a killer app announced has a small release run in Japan). 

Western support for the NGP will be great.  The system sits in a place powerwise that is great because it can be a third pillar to the PS360 multiplatforming strategy that 3rd parties do so love before Project Cafe comes along.  This might prevent Project Cafe and PS4 from being relevant in Japan in much the way DS and PSP make Wii and PS3 mostly irrelevant in Japan already. 

Most importantly NGP will get Angry Birds and other iOS  titles. Given that mobile software is maturing quickly and has quite a few surprise hits (Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, SB Sword and Sorcery. Cut the rope etc) this will be a great boon to NGP as well. These cheap and sometimes impressive ventures will add much value.

These three things combine to give NGP really varied software choices.  From console style $40 games to cheap $1-5 games and everything in between.  Sony having so many studios will also help and many games that didn't pan out well on the PSP due to the lack of a second analog stick might be quite enjoyable now so those titles from the B teams mean more than they did on the PSP because they are now well controlled good experiences and not gimped experiences.

The 3DS has a difficult battle ahead of it.  It's current pricepoint is going to make even sure fire sellers like Nintendogs, Brain Training, and Animal Crossing slow down in the same manner PS3's high price seemed to cut off sales of R&C, SingStar etc. I dont see the people that payed $180 for a DS lite to play Nintendogs paying $290  for a 3DS to play Nintendogs plus cats. 

 I see the handheld market being 160-240 million split 50/50 just about.  Maybe even in Sony's favor if they can capitalize on having a just about never ending stream of content.

Agree 100%.  Especially about the 2nd analog being great for gaming.  I hated how in Syphon Filter they mapped the aiming controls to the 4 face buttons.  It was annoying how it worked and how took away the functionality of 4 buttons.  The NGP should be pretty enjoyable to game on.

 We can't predict **** for NGP until we see the price.

We can't predict how well the potential to sell is for 3DS until the holiday comes and it gets a few Nintendo IPs in the line-up.

So we're jumping the gun here.

I think that's the first time i have to agree with you.

Pokemon and Mario will guarantee 3DS wins by default, however hard that may be to take for some people.

I personally think market conditions outside of Sony's control are going to lead to significant problems for the NGP ...

The American dollar was worth (roughly) 110 to 120 yen when the PSP launched and is now worth (roughly) 80 yen today; and the decline has mostly happened in the past 2 years. It is entirely possible (and some would say likely) that the NGP will launch in North America to a dollar that is only worth 60 to 70 yen.

While it is not quite as dramatic, the Euro has fallen from 150 yen to 110 to 120 yen today; and it is also likely that the Euro will fall further.

In this economic climate you would have to design something that was very inexpensive in Japaneese terms to fall in line with the normal price range people are used to paying in North America and Europe; and I doubt that anyone would argue that the NGP seems to be designed to be a low cost system.

I could be wrong but I suspect the NGP will be the most expensive gaming system on the market, probably by a wide margin; and I wouldn't be surprised to see the NGP in a similar price range to many Tablet PCs; and I don't see how a system like that could be competitive with the 3DS.