Nintendo are also apparently going to be the last to launch their console. It wasn't even ready for (physical) preview at E3 so the general analysis is we'll see it in the later half of 2006. Long after MS and Sony have slugged it out for a while.
I dont believe their strangle-hold on handhelds will last. They've, again, refused to push the state of the art imo. The last big step forward was the GB Advance, which brought a new level of power to handhelds.
That was over 4 years ago now?
Since then we've had the Advance AS (the same thing, in a different package), a million versions of that in different colours (sort of like Dreamwave with their covers) and then they put a touchscreen onto the bottom and made the DS, which whilst being innovative in terms of input device doesn't really add anything new to the game in terms of power, quality or depth imo.
Having played the DS, the touchscreen really doesn't seem to do much except offer an alternative to scrolling menus with the D button.
Meanwhile, since Nintendo have sat on their rearends effectively for 4 years blissfully enjoying their gameboy empire, Sony have come along; made leaps forward in power, design and game complexity and now have a system that thrashes the DS on every measurable quantity and produces a level of game quality that I personally think is staggeringly good.
I appreciate retro-style games are fun, just like those little games that run off watch batteries can be entertaining and cheap, but if I'm going to go out and buy a console/handheld I'd rather pay more and get something which was really worth having. But then I consider myself an exceedingly casual gamer, hence why the idea of buying a whole console just to relive some of the NES 'classics' from '89 is a no-brainer
Of course I'm sure Nintendo are aware of this and are probably coming up with some strategy for backing out of the big console battle and just letting Sony and MS duke it out for a while whilst they produce a far more limited number of revolutions/DS' which sell on a feature or repackaging old victories rather than performance or (worthwhile) innovation.
Since they produce consoles with far less power, I would assume their markup is higher despite kicking the systems out at a (relatively) low price. Hence they don't need to conquer the world with them to stay afloat. Sell some on a gimmick and make money rather than having to sell lots on performance to make money.
Still don't understand why they wouldn't make even more profit licencing out their titles to others and just making software, rather than insisting it only run on their own hardware.
swedish site SweGamers has some of the pictures that Unika apparently have 'leaked'. 
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