A rash of Nintendo DS-related rumour-mongering has broken out all over the face of the Internet, suggesting a new version of the handheld will be announced at E3 this year.
The rumour was kicked off by comments from Hirokazu Hamamura, the president of
Famitsu publisher Enterbrain. No specific source was given by Hamamura. Rather, he pointed to industry scuttlebutt and historical indicators - e.g. it takes an average of two years between Nintendo handheld releases.
Hiroshi Yasushi, a Nintendo rep merely stated that the company has "nothing can speak (of) at this time".
At this point SPOnG would like to point out that the rumour has spawned from an utterly terrible translation of a Japanese Bloomberg article. You can find the nearly illegible google translation
here.
So, not only is this rumour and speculation, it's rumour and speculation from a barely-understandable source.
What is a bit more certain, however, is the fact that Hamamura said the PS3 needs a 25% price cut from the ¥39,980 mark in Japan. "The 30,000 yen price was the tipping point for the PlayStation 2", said Hamamura
†. "Strong titles are coming out, and the price will determine whether or not the PlayStation 3 gets out of its slump."
Source: †Reuters