No,

lets picture this you walk in to a shop and ask for a new 3DS and they hand you this. Bam, console sold.

No. They just came out and said they're focusing on core gamers. How will this confuse their intended audience? The folks that are playing nintendogs aren't going to need the new 3DS. Hope this helps.

It's absolutely terrible branding - you'd hope they'd have learned from the Wii U debacle but here we are. They're going to have to run full-scale education campaigns on this one.

They need to name it as "3DS+" the symbol plus should be means upgrade.

Well it is only a new model, so it isn't important, it would be a 3DS sell no matter what, and anyway, if people are still dumb enough to not know this is a new 3DS model, when it clearly has the word "New" in part of the name, then there is some serious problem going on in the minds of today's consumers.

And it's not like those who get New 3DS will have anything to lose, it would be a better deal, and Nintendo will probably discontinue the old 3DS models soon, to stop the people raging, that seem to forget this has happened every gen.

This.  It's more like a Gameboy Color as it has some major games that will be exclusive on the system and there are some major features that people will want, but people who purchase the original 3DS are going to be able to play 80-90% of the games released until the next portables debut.

The Gameboy Color has way more exclusives than the DSi.  Here's a list.  If it says backwards compatible it's playable on the Gameboy, but if it says no then it's not.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Color_games

Nintendo started labeling all games as Gameboy Color and if they were exclusive to Gameboy Color it said Only On Gameboy Color.

For one it says NEW which is much more obvious than U and its not a new system, its an upgraded revision just like DSi. I also think they will start to phase out the 3DS/XL, they pretty much already have with the original model.

I can't see anyone being confused unless they can't read. The Wii U confusion was fabricated, I have never heard of it except in online forums. Or maybe it just happened in certain countries.

Whether someone has said it yet or not, I see the only issue being when someone wants to buy an "used" one...

People will have to get used to saying "pre-owned", because buying an used New 3DS is a bit awkward, lol

Either gonna be like the DSi (good sales) or the GameBoy Micro (kill the DS brand)