-It should have a microwave compartment, with a monthly fee to stream hot-pockets.

-It should be able to locate unicorns.

r4i

I agree, I never use that.

There is no cost savings in using a non-HD platform for their new portable console. For the Wii, NDS it was different. In 2006, Nintendo needed to take whatever technology was available then to sell for less than $200 in retail stores.

In terms of Nintendo shifting towards the games-download business model instead of only-retail, Nintendo has slowly shifted towards that with their 2006 Wii and 2009 NDSi hardware with the Wii Ware and DSi Ware. And surely the time is right for them to make significant revenues from selling the games directly to consumers for much cheaper prices per game and dropping the intermediaries. It's a big step though, and it could be a risky one, as retailers and resellers can feel threatened by Nintendo openly changing distribution tactics with the next console.

I also am sure Nintendo sees the potential threat of smart phones getting more and more video games, so Nintendo might just as well include 3G and VOIP in its next portable console, at least as an option, and thus counter-attack the smart phones with their own consumer-friendly communications services. And use the competitors smart phones as marketing platforms for their games, and make a billion dollars selling old games at $1 a piece and official Nintendo emulators in the Google marketplace and Apple Appstore.

Anyways, it's just going to be a matter of who's in charge at Nintendo and who gets to make the decisions. They have to maximize profits, it's a question of how they think they can most optimize that profit. They can be conservative about it and keep doing their walled garden retail market platforms or they can decide to innovate not only in game play but also in business models and push things forwards in terms of business models as far as they can while they are ahead.

There is almost no chance Nintendo will do anything listed above. It's just not in their character. Nintendo isn't even going to consider HD anything for this, no doubt. There is no way they will make it more powerful than the Wii, but I can see it being on par with the GameCube (which many early leaks are hinting towards). Thats how their handheld line seems to go when speaking in terms of power.

GB/GBC = NES
GBA = SNES
Nintendo DS = SNES/Nintendo 64 (2 ARM processors for each)

So the next logical step, considering this really is a true successor, would be for the system to match GameCube in terms of power.

The iphone/ipod touch screen is not high resolution at 480×360. Nintendo should go for 800×480 at least. And a mini-HDMI output would be standard to integrate.

OpenGL hardware acceleration of Android 2.0 and newer phones is powerful enough to emulate any Nintendo game console from NES to N64. So obviously Nintendo will eventually have to officially allow those devices to play all those Nintendo games. And given the potential billions of dollars of revenues which they could make selling games to Android devices just by selling each game for $1, it would be illegal for Nintendo towards the law that they have to maximize profits to their shareholders not to open up the games to more devices.

Android is the opposite of bloat when it comes to OS. And if Nintendo thinks Android is too bloated for 3DS. they can simply spend their software investment in simplifying a version of Android for their portable games console. The fact is that if Nintendo thinks it can force a new OS like the one on DSi onto the market in terms of getting third party developers to add useful applications to the device, that is just not a possibility.

Everything I said can be mass manufactured for less than $200. You have to consider Nintendo is selling hundreds of millions of these devices, so basically, whatever they want to do, they can have it done for cheap. It's just a question of what their engineers are able to do and what their business people decide should be done. Sometimes business people decide that removing features is the best way to optimize profits.

A more practical with list would include the following:

Accelerometer for tilt control game play

Analog joystick/controller (maybe something that can be stuck in center of left-right-up-down buttons)

Better cameras (1 mega pixel at least)

Higher resolution screens (same as iphone/itouch)

Add back the slot in front for rumble pack, 3G module, louder speakers, GBA games, pico projector,

Video output/jack is fine (at the higher resolutions of new screens, even HD if possible)

Make (and encourage others to develop) all games with single-card download play ability

360 degree full back flip top clamshell (more durable/no backwards breaking plus more compact for bottom screen games)

Not to mention the insane notion of using Android a bloated OS for a dedicated games machine and allowing other hardware to use the games made for it thats just crazy.

10hour battery, 1080p full bitrate video, HDMI outputs, PixeQI screens seriously…. ???