Looks like the October 2nd conference will be used to announce this and as a press conference for Wii Music. Damn.

But the DS sales are great...

...Why?

well, this was unexpected... especially the new features this DS has.

Guess they do feel somewhat threatened by cellphones.

You know, in the first I thought "no way Nintendo would announce then release this thing in just 3 months, it's a fake". But then I realized that Nintendo has been doing like that for a while now: Wario Shake It, Disaster, Captain Rainbow, all of them released in a very short period after they had been announced or confirmed.
I can wait for the new DS. Time to retire my PSP, which I use mostly as a media player.

This is exactly the new Nintendo. They wont be making *most* big announcements, until 1-2 months before the products are ready.

The camera could be interesting in conjunction with the Wii - but I'm mostly interested about the "non-gaming uses". They could market this as a competitor to the iPod series - its all about internal memory (maybe it uses a cart that plugs into the GBA slot?).

If it has internal memory, it makes the rumoured "virtual gameboy" console possible. I'd kill for a virtual GBA console though :P

Some other possibilities:
- two touch screens (easy to do)
- accelerometer built-in (shake/tilt controls)
- vastly enhanced Pictochat / on-board functionality
- VoIP support? Friend lists?

Existing DS will get a price cut, this will likely be released in Japan first (November?), with a release following in the US (December?) - and Europe next year.

Gonna make things interesting if it happens - DS is kicking enough butt as it is!

If this comes to pass, I hope they reduce the DSlite price, I don't have a DS yet.

I think that these designes while neat, would be better suited for a next gen handheld (like a DS2).

This is a pretty large redesign if true.

I say bogus on this one!