Nintendo DS with Camera and Music comming?

Source: Kotaku

Gaming blog service Kotaku reports that Nintendo might be shipping a new version of its critically successful handheld later this year. This new DS would feature a built in camera as well as support for music playback. Now this may sound as another fanboyish joke, but their source is the official Nikkei newspaper, which is a respectable source of information.

Source: NeoGAF

The news may have some weight into it as the current line of DS, the DS Lite has been around for quite some time now. Moreover, Apple’s iPod Touch is also trying to tap into the touchscreen gaming market. So it seems a wise move for Nintendo to put features of a Camera and a music player into its device. Other expected features include:

• Enhanced wireless connection (able to communicate with other devices too)
• Larger Screens (possibly a wide screen)
• Data exchange from Wii and SD cards

It would be interesting to see how Nintendo and other third party game developers come up with new innovative ideas to use the camera. We might have games that do object recognition or motion detection based on inputs from the camera, something we see in cell phones these days. Another interesting factor would be its price. According to that report, the new model would retail under ¥20,000, which is approximately $188.

The report also suggests that the new model would initially be launched only in Japan, with international release a few months later. Nintendo are yet to confirm this news, and if such a device is in works, it can be alarming for the new PSP-3000 series.