Apparently, two years after the launch of Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo is ready to revamp its portable gaming device. On Sunday, Japanese newspaper The Nikkei Business Business Daily reported that Nintendo is ready to unveil a new Nintendo DS at a news conference on Thursday.

Although there is no official confirmation, The Nikkei Business Daily seems pretty sure that Nintendo is set to unveil a Nintendo DS with a camera, music player function and better wireless capability for Internet.

Moreover, The Nikkei also noted that the price of the new Nintendo DS will be somewhere around 20,000 yens or $189. The device will be sold first in Japan, while a US release is also considered.

According to Wired, the camera function of the new Nintendo DS could be integrated with gameplay, by allowing games to use the photos taken with the hardware.

In fact, rumors about a new DS version are flying around since last year. In November 2007, Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson said that Nintendo is secretly working on a new DS version, but the company declined to comment.

Wilson noted that the new version would be thinner, would have onboard storage and larger screens. He also noted that the new DS will be launched only when sales of the current version will begin to tail off in all three major geographies.

Before this year’s E3, Enterbrain boss Hirokazu Hamamura also predicted that Nintendo will launch a new DS.

His predictions were based on the fact that Nintendo has made a habit of presenting a new handheld every two years, and the DS Lite was released in 2006.

Right before E3, there were speculations that the new DS model will offer media functions, such as dedicated audio and video playback, as well as an additional slot for removable hardware. However, Nintendo didn’t announce anything at E3 about a new DS.

Nintendo DS was launched in late 2004 and a revamped version, lighter and slimmer, was introduced two years later, under the name Nintendo DS Lite.

Nintendo DS is a huge success for the Japanese company, with 54 million units sold worldwide since its launch. In Japan, the company sold 23 million units since its launch, but

Nintendo DS was also crowned as the best-selling video game system in the United States in 2007, with more than 8.5 million sold copies. In the past four months, Nintendo DS enjoyed strong sales in the US with 783,000 units sold in June and 608,400 in July. However, in August, Nintendo has managed to sell only 518,300 Nintendo DSs.

In Japan, during the April to June quarter Nintendo sold 580,000 units versus 2.1 million in the same period of 2007.

Also, Sony announced a new PlayStation Portable handheld entertainment system to the Japanese market. The company’s computer entertainment division rolled out the PSP-3000 with advanced high-contrast LCD and a built-in microphone, which will become available on October 16th for 19,800 yen (including tax), same as the current PSP.

PSP-3000 will come in three colors, “Piano Black,” “Pearl White,” and “Mystic Silver,” and it is approximately 169.4 x 18.6 x 71.4 mm in size, weighting approximately 189g.

Considering all this and the upcoming Tokyo Game Show 2008, which will be held starting October 9th through the 12th, it is very probable that Nintendo will have something to announce.