Nintendo DS2 Details Leak: Bigger, Higher-Res Screens, Accelerometer, Late-2010 Launch?

Nintendo's DSi XL isn't even on US shelves yet, and already gamers are prodding developers to find out details about the next-gen handheld.  News on the Nintendo DS2 was top of the list for RPad.TV when they hit up GDC 2010, and they've managed to extract a few choice nuggets in the process.  The DS2 – the official name of which nobody would, or could, spill – will apparently keep its dual-displays, but the panels will be larger, higher-resolution and have so minimal a gap between them that titles will be able to in effect use them as a single, big screen.

Other hardware news is that the DS2 will have an integrated accelerometer, which RPad.TV aren't too impressed by but which could indicate Nintendo are looking to leverage the larger panels and customer hunger for ebooks to better position the handheld as a portable reading platform (like a mini enTourage eDGe, though without the E Ink).  The dev kit, meanwhile, is believed to be as powerful as that of the GameCube, and developers are said to find it straightforward if they're experienced in creating GameCube and/or Wii titles.

In fact developers who claim to have experience with the dev kit say it has very little learning curve.  Previous tips have suggested the next-gen Nintendo DS will use NVIDIA's Tegra chipset.  As for those titles themselves, development is expected to be completed before the end of the year, and in fact the DS2 itself is tipped for a potential E3 2010 announcement and late 2010 release.  However, that could change if strong sales of the existing-gen DS variants continue.

[via Kotaku; image credit Phil Nolan]