DSi XL is the precursor to a hardware shift!

As you should know by now if you have been reading my blog, I firmly believe that Nintendo will announce a new handheld device this incoming year, 2010. To me it feels like the right time to move on from the DS hardware, with the slowing sales as nearly everyone and their grandparents have one, the look of the software is also starting to look incredibly outdated to me. I love the DS and its abilities but I do yearn for more from the system to have a bit of flair in the art design.

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.

Javier Segovia – Nintendo Future Retro

I know a lot of people out there love to speculate what new consoles and handhelds in gaming will look like.  MANY concept artists have been out there with their simply amazing designs but not one has ever come close to what the real device’s are revealed to look like.  This is mainly due to their outlandish nature in design, going to the nth degree and further into realms of design that aren’t manufacturable.

One graphic artist I’ve came across in the past is Javier Segovia, a Spaniard from Sevilla whose specialities are Illustration, Art Direction, 3-D Modeling. You can visit his Coroflot profile by clicking this sentence.