I'm interested in GiantBomb for two reasons:

1. Most of the interesting Gamespot Staff have seen fit to build the site. (It strikes me as taking a page out of Ayn Rand - read Atlas Shrugged and you'll know what I mean.)
2. There seems to be a different philosophy around the site than at IGN or Gamespot, namely a love of user-generated content.

It seems to me that there are two big debates going on in the DS community: over whether a redesign has already happened, and whether Nintendo will announce the new product at some point in the near future. The consensus seems to be that if there were a new model of the DS in the works, Nintendo would release that information. I believe, however, that it's entirely possible a new design does exist, and that Nintendo is withholding the model for business reasons.

First Issue: The Status of the Redesign

I'd like to argue that the clever people at Nintendo have already designed a potential next DS model, but whether the prototype will be the eventual successor to the Lite is anybody's guess.

Here's my reasoning: Some of you may remember a December GameSpot news article, in which a person connected to the project stated that the DS redesign had already finished.

"Our contacts indicate that a refreshed DS is complete," Wilson said today in his holiday preview investor's note. "It is thinner (it has no GBA port), has on-board storage, and larger screens. However, we do not expect a revamped Wii or DS until sales begin to tail off in all three major geographies."

This quote comes from a Mr. Evan Wilson, a Pacific Crest Securities analyst. Admittedly, he's getting his information from an indirect source, so it's possible some information is being skewed in a game of telephone. But one doesn't go very far as a market analyst without a reputation for being able accurately to transmit accurate facts about the industry. His job depends on him making factual statements, and given Nintendo's history of continuously updating its hand-held consoles, this news doesn't seem all that far fetched.

Now consider the article provided to us by Minishdriveby, which features an interview with Nintendo exec Satoru Iwata. Here I disagree with Minish that Iwata was refuting the existence of a DS redesign project. If you read the article, Iwata only denies the fact that there would be "a new portable machine announcement" for Nintendo's October expo, not that a new DS design was in the works. In fact, if you read the full Q&A session, Mr. Iwata actually points out Nintendo's business strategy of constantly redesigning their systems.

"We need to forecast what the future will be like with the expected evolution of new technologies which are available at any given time, and try to identify the so-called "sweet spot" of technology over the next few years. However, not everything we have designed has actually been introduced to the market. We have produced a number of hardware prototypes which did not in the end reach the market place. We are always preparing for new hardware so that we can launch whenever we determine we should do so."

Given this information, I think there's almost certainly a completed prototype design for the next Nintendo DS somewhere in a vault at Nintendo headquarters. Whether that design is the final version, however, is something we just don't know, and probably wont ever know... not until the gods of gaming end this world and we achieve eternal enlightenment.

Second Issue: Will the next DS model be announced soon?

As some other people in this thread have pointed out, it doesn't make much financial sense to release release a redesign, or even confirm that a redesign exists. Nintendo sold 6.3 million DS units in 2007, making it the most often purchased platform of the year, handheld or console. Confirming that a new and improved model existed would cause potential customers to hold off from buying the current generation of DS and hold out for the next one. Nintendo would only allow this to happen once the current generations sales have diminished to the point that a new model would mostefficiently re-invigorate the market.

So, until sales start dropping dramatically, there's little likelihood that a new DS model will be announced.

What does that mean for us?

To tell you the truth, I think that we should treat this news as a good thing. Nintendo will continue to tinker with the DS design until they perfect it or decide that the market is ready for the next of what is surely going to be many iterations of the handheld. In the meanwhile, gamers can continue to speculate at their leisure and request their favorite features. Keep on guessing what the final product will be, folks, but don't go selling off your current DS just yet.