Pop Quiz: When you look at the picture to the right, can you tell me what popular game system that is?

I know the impulse is to just blurt out the answer, but I suggest you take a second look and think this one through. It certainly looks like the Nintendo DS, but which version? Maybe it's the DSi or the DS Lite? Could it be a 3DS? We can rule out that it's not the Nintendo DSi Lite (too small) or the Game & Watch (too new). So what is it?

I bet you think it's the Nintendo DS, the top selling game system of all time. Well, there's one long-running video game magazine that would disagree with you. According to the picture below, the system you're looking at is none other than a ... Sony PSP?


It's true; at one time GamePro decided that Sony's first handheld game system was going to look exactly like the Nintendo DS. It's a little hard to make out, but if you look closely you will see that the artist attached the letters "PSP" on the back of what appears to be a DS. It sits up there next to the Nokia N-Gage (right) and Nintendo's Game Boy Advance (center).

What makes this story even more curious is the timing. GamePro printed this illustration in their January 2004 publication (issue 184), months before anybody knew what the Nintendo DS looked like. What's more, by the time this article was written, the Nintendo DS hadn't even been announced. This feature makes no mention of Nintendo's handheld, instead focusing their attention on a wireless connector that will let you trade Pokemon characters from one Game Boy Advance to another.

If anything, GamePro should be commended for getting the next generation of portables right ... kind of. They certainly had the Nintendo DS look down, just not the right name plastered on the back. Maybe we should be looking to GamePro's art department for clues to the future. If we pay close attention to each drawing we may be able to stop an act of terrorism or another Big Momma's House movie from being made.