Nikkei Business daily, the respected eastern business journal, has claimed that insiders at Nintendo are hinting that the firm may indeed attempt to bring its next home console to market before either Microsoft or Sony, with the year 2005 banded heavily.
The story indicates that Nintendo believes that by pipping the others to the big next-gen release, it will gain a greater market share for itself and its products.
However, most analysts believe that to make this move, which closely mirrors the blunder made by Sega upon the release of the Dreamcast, will sting Nintendo. Indeed, it is thought, looking at current and projected installed user-base figures, that a "wait-for-PlayStation 3 or Xbox 2" mentality will arise, leaving Nintendo enjoying shelve-space, without sufficient demand.
The Dreamcast's killer blow was Sony's ability to spin the future, convincing consumers that, rather than take a machine, simply because it's available, it is better to wait for the killer console, with all the games, improved graphics and so on.
But that doesn't matter: Once you have gotten people to wait, when it comes to launch, you leave them with no choice: They have to buy your machine, having snubbed the competition for so long.
It's fairly plain for all to see that PlayStation 3, whatever it is, will be the most desirable next-generation home videogames machine. What Nintendo must do is ward off Microsoft's advances on a secondary market by paying due respect to its key IP and its army of fans that it has arguably taken for granted for too long.
We will of course, be the first place of all breaking next-gen console news. Keep it locked...