Naz. Play nice. Just cause he doused himself in gasoline doesn't give you the right to light the match. (so what does everyone think of my new flaming analogy?)

But seriously sharky, most of that doesn't make any sense. Nintendo can easily make a console or handheld that is relatively powerful. And there are tons of aspects to each and every new piece of hardware, meaning that Nintendo, Sony and anybody else will always have new elements to explore and existing elements to improve on.

The Wii 2 wouldn't have to find totally new ways to play, it would only have to refine and improve upon what the current one does. Ditto DS.

And as for your original point of predicting poor Wii/DS sales based on what's happening in Japan right now... Everybody's sales are tanking right now week to week. It's just a slow time of year in Japan.

Another false assumption is that the next generation portable will focus on something more powerful. I think that integration into cell phones could very well be the next step.

And who has the best library of small footprint games to transition into cell phones?

@Sharky

stof and Naz mostly covered my responses. However, I'll add the following:

1. The Gameboy Advance was a massively successful handheld. In 5 years it sold 70% of what the Gameboy did in 10. Your argument that the original Gameboy was the only worthwhile previous handheld is just wrong.
2. Nintendo is NOT a small company. It's one of the top ten companies in Japan, and just because they don't lose money on their consoles doesn't mean they couldn't afford to.
3. While stof may be correct that Nintendo doesn't need to come up with an awesome new control scheme ("gimmick") for their next-gen consoles, just because you can't think of somewhere new for them to go doesn't mean they can't.
4. Seriously though, gimmicks are things like the Virtual Boy's screen that you strapped to your face or the eCard reader or the Pocket Station or the screen on the Dreamcast memory card. Things that ultimately have little to no impact on gameplay, much unlike the Wii or the DS. Whether or not you enjoy/like the direction that Nintendo went with its last handheld and console, neither rely on a gimmick any more than the N64 relied on the "gimmick" of the analogue stick.

 Anyone remember the N-Gage? 

Yeah, we remember how that turned out. 

That's what happens when a company with no game software experience tries to do something it has no clue about. Thankfully Nintendo has the best software engineers in the world at building small footprint games. 

@sharky believe me there are thousands of other "gimmicks" Nintendo could use:

1) Virtual Reality (failed with VB but could get things better)
2) camera-based gameplay (a-la EyeToy)
3) 2 LCD screens on top of one another to present truly 3D graphics
4) already announced - Wii balance board
5) Solar energy meters

And so on... Mind boggles with the ENDLESS possibilities. Who knows? Next generation maybe Sony can pull something of its hat that is intuitive and regain the market (ever-changing one this is).

The fact that WiiFit/Balance Board came out so quickly after the release of the Wii should tell you that nintendo has been putting their DS/Wii money back into R&D.
I expect something very interesting from the Wii 2 whenever it comes out.
Try and think outside the box.

The Standard way you control the game can not be called a gimmick. It is central to any console.

 It's not quite the same; holographic images are still in research stage and almost impossible to achieve like the movies for instance; what I mentioned already exists and is - if memory serves- a Sharp patent. 

So FFVII saves the PSP for a week will EndlessCrisis for the PS3 do the same?(Rhetorical question, no flaming and its off topic).
I odnt think the PSP and FFVII:CC can hold those sales for more than 3weeks at the most especially in JPN where usually when they pick the console they stick with the console and they picked DS and suddenly the PSP starts selling 100-200k a week and the DS drops off to 20-30k a week that would be weird to watch if that happens the PS3 will sell more than the Wii this Christmas and beyond, EVERY DAY and EVERY WEEK.