Next gen DS may have nVidia power.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm pretty excited about this, because the current DS is already one of the best game consoles in history (of any kind, not just portables) even with its relatively crummy graphical power.

Supposedly the next gen DS is going to use nVidia's new Tegra 2 mobile graphics tech (The Zune HD uses Tegra, but not Tegra 2).

What's that mean as far as capability? Tegra 2 is supposed to support full 1080p (a friggin hunormous leap from the current DS's rather pathetic 256x384).That alone may be all the DS really needs to look a thousand times better...a lot of current DS games look great when you ignore the crap resolution.

But claims put the Tegra 2's graphical prowess above that of even the Wii. Which means Nintendo may well have an HD handheld on the market before an HD set-top (Nintendo has made it clear that they're not concerned about HD for the Wii, and it's just not going to happen).

One convenient thing about this is that, since Tegra is ARM-based, this leaves open the possibility for backward compatibility with first-gen DS titles.

It's possible that the next-gen DS could arrive as early as next winter.

[bmike818]

Nintendo will not drop support of it's early DS games, they just dropped GBA capability. They will not make the same mistake Sony did by reducing it's current game library. This is exciting news. Pokemon HD!

[MinisterofDOOM]

Indeed, and if the new DS's design follows the current (engineering-wise) it'll likely have a second ARM processor dedicated to non-graphics functions. The big question at that point is memory. That's one of the DS/DS Lite's big weaknesses, although the DSi more or less corrected it. But for 1080p gaming the system will need a "big console" quantity of system memory...which shouldn't be a big deal but I still worry considering past trends. Hopefully we see 512MB of total system memory like in the 360. I don't see how the console can pull off 1080p with less than 256MB.

[RCA]

I am definitely on board for this one. I am a DS supporter and I have played some of their better titles and had an absolute blast, now with full HD res, I can only image what tricks they decide to pull out of their hats. Any word on sound improvements?

[MinisterofDOOM]

No word about sound, yet. It's hard to say. On the one hand, they could probably get away with mediocre sound like the current DS. Most people will only ever use the system's built-in speakers, and you can only do so much with tiny shallow speakers.

HOWEVER, I suspect the next DS will be more media-oriented than the current DS or DSi, especially with Tegra (you could have DS movies!). Which means it'll need decent sound quality to support that media content. Even if the built-in speakers don't sound great, the system will need to sound good through headphones in order to be well-received as a media device.

With the PSP getting more and more media oriented, you have to wonder if Nintendo feels a need to compete there, or whether they'll stick to being a gaming device with very light media support as with the DSi.