LOL

@OP: I bet there's a bit of confusion, but nothing that will hurt 3DS sales in the long run. DS sales on Black Friday proved too good to ignore.

Also, if consumers don't do their due diligence and research a high-priced item before buying, it's their own fault.

It's a lot cheaper, why wouldn't it sell more in a crazy-sale-thing whatever black friday is...

-Or just troll parents

I think parents (and even kids) think the 3DS is just a DS that can do 3D.

My 7 year old nephew calls the 3DS the "3D DS".

Dumbass.....

I think it just has alot to due with the black friday sale and theres no point in buying the 2x as expensive upgrade for young kids who have never owned a handheld console. For instance, my aunt got a DS for my 8 year old cousin who has never owned a handheld and i know he will be excited to play games like NSMB, Mario Kart, Pokemon and all the other great games DS has to offer for the first time.

There might be confusion, but i think DS took the sales from 3DS (not the only reason) because there were great deals for DS - or so i have heard.

Is not available to stop market confusion, can you imagine people buying the gamepad thinking it will work on their wiis?

I've seen a lot of people (even techy ones) that think that 3DS is just a DS with 3D. It's a terrible name if you don't want to generate confusion.

Yesterday I was at my local walmart and was quite dismayed to see no separate 3DS section , all the 3DS systems and games were all on the same wall mixed up. Talk about adding to consumer confusion. (Though they had a clearly separate area for Wii U and it was obvious it was different from the Wii.)

Sadly my wife even thought the Wii U was just the gamepad itself so she came to the conclusion it worked with the Wii. It's mostly due to the lack of seeing the actual console during the reveal and the device looking almost identicle. I bet once the gamepad is available speratetly that we hear some funny stuff regarding this.

Nintendo was put it a difficult spot. Putting Wii and DS in the names of its next-generation systems made sense because of all the good will associated with those brands. But it ran the risk of confusion.

Still, I think it's worked out pretty well for 3DS. There are always going to be people who mistakenly think DS = 3DS or Halo can be played on PS3. But over 20 million people can clearly tell the difference between DS and 3DS.