DS details on October 7th?

It now looks likely that Nintendo will announce key release date, pricing and launch line-up information for the Nintendo DS at a press conference in Tokyo on October 7th. According to a report from Bloomberg last week, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and designer Shigeru Miyamoto will be on hand to formally unveil the handheld to the Japanese press.

The company had been expected to make this sort of announcement sometime this week to coincide with the Tokyo Game Show. Although the platform holder is not exhibiting at the show (it has already planned its own national tours of Japan and America), it had been expected to try and spoil Sony's PSP showing by making its own announcements. That may still happen, but it now looks far more likely that October 7th will be the day.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has already started showing ads for the handheld on Japanese TV, featuring the new design of the unit and musical accompaniment from Hikaru Utada, whose last contribution to the gaming world was the theme tune for Kingdom Hearts. The ad lists the release date as "winter 2004" and features a nicely dressed young lady encouraging gamers to "Touch!" We will. Soon.