New Nintendo handheld announced next year?

Bloomberg.com have reported on comments by analyst of the Nikki exchange Soichiro Fukuda about Nintendo’s future. One of these specific comments was;

Nintendo may announce a model change for its DS handheld video-game players in June next year, triggering an improvement in the company’s earnings

This can be construed like some reporting outlets have as a DSi like enhancement to the system for a small time gain in sales that happened in similar revisions in the past with both the DSlite and DSi. But as I have personally commentated on I firmly believe this as an expectation of a new handheld device coming from Nintendo to replace the DS. Announced in 2003 and released in 2004 the DS has now been on the market for almost 5 years, if this announcement goes down in June or anytime during 2010 the likely release date will be late 2010 going into 2011 or later, this would mean that the DS has been available of more than 6 years. For comparison sake the Gameboy advance launched in 2001, through 2 redesigns (SP and Micro) the Advance was available on market for 3 years before another device was launched and was available for sale on market up until 2006 if my memory serves me correct.

Ireland 5 Year Tax Holiday!

Well doesn’t that sound like a nirvana! Or so they are trying to convince Real Time Worlds of…

I’m a little late in discussing this but Ireland’s Sir Gerry Robinson at a Global Irish Economic Forum convened in Dublin a few weekends ago urged Ireland’s government to consider actively targeting the thriving games companies in Scotland through a 5 year tax holiday.  A 5 year tax holiday to companies fitting into the games industry would be a huge bait to development studios to locate in Ireland.