Nintendo quiet on new DS rumours

[Shrygue]

via Games Industry


Nintendo has told GamesIndustry.biz that it will not comment on new rumours of a redesigned DS handheld, branding talk "rumour and speculation".

US blog Kotaku has suggested that the company will be issuing a new DS next year, featuring two touch-sensitive screens.

According to the story, any official word on such a device would not be announced by Nintendo until after the Christmas sales period.

Sales of the handheld in Japan during the financial quarter ended June 30 have dropped, but the system is still selling well in Europe and the US.

[wiggy fuzz]

wouldn't be surprising, now...

2 touch screens would be nice, i'm sick of poking the wrong screen in yoshi touch and go...

but, why 2 touch screens?

[nightblade36]

For some reason I have huge doubts about the idea of a second touch screen, and unless it's a new handheld altogether, I don't see why they would have a second one.

I mean, so many DS games have already been released without any support for a second screen.

[trugamer]

Yeh I think they must mean a new console altogether.

So the real point is that Nintendo won't be releasing a new console any time soon.

Personally I would think Nintendo would improve the current touch screen (more sensitive, detects multiple touches etc) rather than add the extra cost of another touch screen.

[Pilot_51]

Personally I would think Nintendo would improve the current touch screen (more sensitive, detects multiple touches etc) rather than add the extra cost of another touch screen.

That's probably the most that can be done as far as touch screens without making it an entirely new handheld, but even then it will probably bring some compatibility issues preventing it from being a viable redesign. The point of a redesign is to keep the native games (meaning DS games, GBA games don't count) fully functional between hardware versions while making the hardware better, if any cross-compatibility is lost it can't really be classified as a simple redesign.
I can imagine a lot that can logically be done to improve the design of the DS, but most of it would make it a new-generation handheld.