Nintendo has seeded the DS2 development kit to a few selected companies, including the hardware itself. According to one developer, Nintendo said the DS2 was the first version and not final, but he is very impressed with the new controls:
It's genuinely the best thing I think I've ever worked with. I can tell you that it's got a 'tilt' function that's not dissimilar to iPhone, but does a lot more. We know that The Pokemon Company are getting special attention with it.
I wonder if this move was always on the cards or if it's just a reaction to Apple's huge success in the gaming arena, a success that has turned upside down both the idea of games distribution and some of the conceptions for mobile gaming previously set by Nintendo and Sony, especially when it comes to the importance of physical controls. Would the new DS2 include capacitive screens too? How could Nintendo one-up the sudden and serious threat that Apple now represents? We will have to wait a long time to discover the answers. Probably too much, probably way after the iPad and the next iPod/iPhone generation appear.