Rpad TV did a little asking around at GDC to see what they could dig up on the DS2. What they managed to squeeze out of certain third-party developers was that, while DS2 will retain the dual screen format, both screens will be bigger and much closer to each other, essentially giving off the illusion of a single large screen.
Allegedly, development kits for the DS are similar in architecture to those of the Gamecube, despite prior rumours of the device being powered by an nVidia Tegra chip. An accelerometer is all but confirmed at this point, considering Nintendo president Satoru Iwata himself has hinted at it.
And finally, the general consensus seems to be that the DS2 is scheduled for a reveal at E3 this year. Developers working on games for the platform hope to have them ready for release by the end of the year, should Nintendo choose to launch it in this fall.
The bigger question is, what kind of software and capabilities will the device have built into it? We know Netflix are considering streaming to the DS. But then you have internal Nintendo-developed software like Tomodachi Collection, which would make complete sense to include with a DS2 as a fun social networking application.
Mockup image sourced from Gizmodo.
