Topic: Is the new 3DS a sign that nintendo is preparing a new combined handheld and console launch within 2 years?

Maybe, also it could be a unified Wii U and 3DS move, as it could be used as a GamePad with the power and stuff

Eh? What?

Unlike most of the responses, I actually agree with the OP. The Wii U will have been out for about 4 years by that time, and while that isn't the typical 5-6, if it remains a struggling console, it'll be the perfect solution to "jumping ship" so to speak on the wii u, but doing it in a way that doesn't really seem like they ARE doing it, because they're going into a whole new world with the portable / console hybrid. If Nintendo does start thinking along the lines of "Wii U just isn't selling, and we need to make a change", it really is the perfect way to do it a little earlier than normal.

It also "fixes" the lack of 3rd part support that they experience on their consoles, but not so much on their handhelds. Just think, if every major 3ds title (Luigi's Mansion, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Fire Emblem: Awakening, etc. etc.) had also released on the Wii U, there wouldn't be much complaining on Wii U's lack of releases at all. As Nintendo home consoles are becoming more and more dependent on Nintendo themselves to develop the games, it's making less and less sense for them to dedicate so much of their game making resources to handheld only when those games could be going on "both" home and portable in the form of a hybrid.

some kind of home+portable console is inevitable. Especially if Nintendo caters its product to the Japanese market (which they obviously do).
home consoles are dead in Japan, and will soon follow in north america.

I don't think you can ring the death knell for NA consoles anytime soon. While there are tons of cites that have a public transportation or long commute population most of us use cars or don't have a long enough commute to warrant giving up the tv consoles.

This is a really exciting idea. Nintendo can bridge the gap between living room and mobile better then most manufactures. I think they understand there is a psychological shift of the type of experience we have out compared to what we want in the home. If they can convey that divide in one device I think that could sell really well.

I think nintendo could make a great wiiu gamepad that played 3ds games but when close to the wiiu console it can become a gamepad again. If for some reason nintendo ditches its OS and goes for android they would open their platform to so many developers and possible new use cases. Nintendo could make a combined eshop that is needed to access nintendo games.

I don't think when they said they were moving the console and handheld divisions closer together this is what they meant. If it was then it's probably the dumbest idea they've had yet. I think people are taking that announcement way to literally here. If Smash can bring Wii U and 3DS in the way that it seems to be then why do they need to align the releases of these platforms? If they do they'll either be stretching the 3DS out too long or cutting the Wii U too short. And there's no reason for it.

It's not just Nintendo, everyone does this. They do it because it helps sell more units by keeping their products in the news. If you have two markets then it makes sense to spread them out so that you're not only in the news for longer but you're also not smothering your other product. If you thought Wii U and 3DS sales were bad at their launches imagine if they had launched on the same day and the average Nintendo fan was split on which platform to go for? It'd be a nightmare. Remember the endless threads about how Nintendo failed to capture third party support because of poor early sales of their platforms? Why would you risk making that worse?

Plus when they have been talking about making development more efficient by moving both teams closer together? What makes you think it's not more about internal stuff? Sharing resources? Or still releasing the same games but having them connect to each other in the way that Smash is. You don't need a hybrid console to do this. Even if they're having the hardware teams think about how the consoles work with each other, why does that have to be a hybrid? Why can't it just mean that they're thinking about how the hardware will integrate with cross-platform games and services during development? Doesn't that make more sense?

Smash doesn't really bring the Wii U and 3DS together in any meaningful way than any other cross platform game. Both versions share the same characters, but that's about it, aside from that they're essentially too different games. It'd be much more worthwhile if they could simply put the same version on both the console and handheld, which seems to be more what they're going for.

Sony has both a handheld and console and they don't really stay in the news that long. And Microsoft doesn't even have a handheld. Nintendo is the only console developer that releases new models so frequently.

This might be a legitimate problem, but the people that want to buy both will either get the bundle, or wait a year and get the other. And you expect the initial sales to be somewhat low anyway.

That's exactly what I was saying, it's not going to be a hybrid console it's probably going to be two separate devices that share the same OS, the same services, and similar games.

Last gen, Sony released 3 models for the Playstation 3 (launch model, Slim, and Super Slim) and 4 for the PSP (launch, Slim, Brite, and Go). Counting all of the hard drive options, the PS3 had 14 different SKUs, not including bundles. Just one SKU for the PS4 so far, but the Vita already has 2.

The Xbox doesn't have a handheld line, but the 360 had the Premium and Core models in the launch window, then later the Arcade, S, and E models. Altogether not including bundles, the 360 had 9 different SKUs. This generation, the XB1 has 2 so far.

@skywake
Ya, but if the new console/portable hybrid existed, there would only be 1 device to buy that could do both. It would be called the Wii VDS, and it would be magnificent Then any type of software could run on it. I imagine it would be like owning a PS Vita and PS Vita TV, except the graphics and capabilities would be in line with what a home console does; not portable. In that respect, Sony technically already has the idea down, but only between PS Vita and PS Vita TV; excluding PS4.

Haha, no way.

EDIT:
I was going to write what @CaviarMeths said, but he said it as good as it could be said, so I'll just ask you to check his post again.

Or the fact that Apple has an iPhone, iPhone slightly bigger, iPhone minus phone, really big iPhone, really big iPhone minus phone, slightly smaller really big iPhone etc, etc. You have different products because different people want different things. It makes sense to do it that way if you're that big a presence. It doesn't make sense if you're that big a player to merge your products into one single product that doesn't fill the niches you've created. And if you push them all out at once every 6 years rather than alternating? Then in four years your entire product lineup looks old rather than just half of it.

I don't disagree, they're doing that already with the 3DS and pushing it further with the New 3DS. They're already putting MiiVerse, the eShop, your NNID and Amibo on both. Outside of actual games, which Smash Bros is one, there's not much else you'd expect to see. Nothing that can't be done in software anyways.

Why do they need to abandon the business model that's worked for them and everyone else for decades? Nobody has given a good reason as to why they would other than it being "just a hunch" or "they should take that risk". Why? What do they gain by lining up the portable and non-portable platform lifecycles?

@skywake
I guess that explains why iPhone 6 is already outdated in some ways iPhone 4S still runs the apps. Instead of optimizing iPhone 4S, they just released more hardware to run what iPhone 4S already does. Apple should have had all the features available in iPhone 6 in 2011, and iPhone 4S running the current iOS proves that. New 3DS being a 3DS revision after 3-4 years makes more sense in that regard, because not only was Apple behind in 2011, but they were behind with the next 2 phones after that. They technically wasted market space by releasing a ton of devices instead if releasing them when they actually needed to. I get the whole "every device is different for different people" bit, but Apple is just behind, period, regardless of how many devices they have out there. People are ticked off at it is with the New 3DS, but Apple people encourage buying a damn $650 phone every year without contract. Ultimately, seeing what Nintendo and Apple are doing, I think it means Nintendo is doing the right thing by releasing a New 3DS, but Apple has already treaded that ground far too often without making decisions they could have in their particular market.

I would be just as displeased with Nintendo is a new 3DS came out every year. A New 3DS 3 years is already pushing it a bit too far for some people, and it doesn't make sense to release them any faster than that, because Nintendo has an entirely different handheld market.

DS was the core handheld device for Nintendo for 7 years. People weren't mad about having an older device for years. The only one that did anything different than the original DS was DSi, and it wasn't even absolutely necessary to be up to date, for the most part. All I'm getting from that, is that Nintendo is cramming a years worth of Apple improvements into a 4 year device, instead of a yearly iPhone, especially considering how iPhone and New 3DS will be adding NFC at basically the same time. iPhone doesn't even have 3D. Android doesn't even have much 3D. Nintendo is owning the 3D market right now. Rambling off topic rant over.

I've said it three times already: more games. Instead of having to divide up their resources between two consoles, they can simply work on both of them simultaneously. That reduces the amount of software droughts that they would have in the consoles' life cycle and allow them to keep up momentum.

And this can't be done with the same release model that they've been running with since the 80s? Surely no matter what they do there would still need to be a performance gap between the portable and non-portable platforms. So whatever you do there will still be the same sort of exchange of content that there is now. Portable gets simpler games and ports from older non-portables and the non-portable gets some content ported up to it from the portable as well as more meatier content.

Why can't this "merging of platforms" just mean that more things like the cross-platform Smash development happen or the New SMB 2/U thing. Both of those were built for both platforms at the same time with the same team working together. Maybe next time when a game like Luigi's Mansion 2 comes out we get it on both platforms at once. They can do this already and they're doing it already. Why do they need to line up the release cycles?

Because it's easier to work on one version for two different platforms than it is to work on a different version for each platform.

The only way I see a 100% combined platform happening, is if somehow the handheld hardware development surpasses console development, but that basically won't happen, because handheld technology almost always derives from console technology, fitted into a smaller package.

There's basically no way that the GBA could have existed during SNES in 1991, and that's the type of technological threshold they'd have to pass, in order to have portables and consoles on the same page.

I think it means the 3DS is here to stay because Nintendo wants to make something really big with the nextr gen handhelds, something that will take a couple extra years to achieve.

My guess:
New Handheld is rumoured for a 2015 E3 showing, but isn't. Instead, it's shown in 2016 and launched later that year (or maybe 2017)