Johnny Novgorod said:
Going from "Nintendo DS" to "Nintendo 3DS" to "Nintendo New 3DS" isn't the smartest marketing move, no. Didn't they learn anything from the Wii U marketing fiasco?
They should read a page off Sony's book. PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. No "PS1 U" or "PS2 New" or "PS3.5D" bullshit. Just numbers, in order. It's not that hard, Nintendo.
3DS2/3DSXL2 isn't that great either though... that initial 3 really screws with the acronym.
I imagine they heavily considered that when they thought of the name. They likely thought that since the New 3DS can't be mistaken for a peripheral of the current 3DS, they could use the well known DS brand without the negative side effects that the Wii U experiences.
The use of the word 'new' all together is an issue though...
The real trouble will begin when less knowledgeable people buy games that are exclusive to the new system under the misguided interpretation that the word 'new' is in reference to the product(as in a new release) as opposed to being for a different platform.
I get the feeling that the issue with the name is one that's arising from translation. Either the name in Japanese is a specific use of their word for new that doesn't create the same confusion, or the name will use the English word new worldwide which didn't seem like a bad idea from the people naming it due to the language gap.
By language gap I mean the way people understand words from another language as what they are presented as and not what they mean. For example "Nintendo" is a company/console name devoid of meaning to us other than to define those exact things. Nintendo roughly translates to, "leave luck to heaven" but we would never confuse that with anything because we don't have the same word association. The word new could very well be a similar situation for them where they don't have that same word association and therefore sounds fine as a product name.
I may be entirely wrong in my ramblings but it seems possible in my mind.
