As much as a sign of the times as a smart business decision, Nintendo has decided to merge its handheld and console hardware teams. Taking place on February 16 (whoa, that's soon), the 130 members of the console team will join the 150 members of the handheld team and begin working the company's future. Why? According to the report, "In an effort to create more innovative and attractive products."

With technology evolving at an alarming pace and the minimum requirements expected of a console changing year to year, Nintendo realizes they need to work heard, to do more:

"Game system development projects are becoming larger and taking longer to complete as the machines become more advanced. Nintendo apparently has its sights set on speeding up these projects by sharing development processes for consoles and handheld devices where possible and by reassigning personnel depending on the situation. It sees interactions between engineers as a potential hotbed of new ideas."

If anything, I believe this is Nintendo's simple recognition that a sharing of ideas and concepts can go a long way towards building a better hardware device. It could be that simple. Naturally, there's some complexities too. Connectivity between handhelds and consoles, cross-platform accounts and data sharing along with universal services like social media. This is work that can be done more effectively as one team.

Sounds like Nintendo has some exciting plans for the future, and if this means a growth in scope when it comes to hardware design then I think all gamers are cheering them on. Can't wait to see what Nintendo is working on next.