Hardware Is the Aqua Blue original 3DS with the half blue half black lid some sort of limited edition?

[porko]

I tried Googling but couldn't find anything, it's not on the wiki page of colours released to each region either.

What is it?

 

[plushifoxed]

This looks similar:

Are you sure it's not just how it looks in certain lighting?
If it's not that, maybe it's the Cobalt Blue variant that they released later on. I'm not quite sure how exactly those look in person.
Barring that... I really don't know. Perhaps some sort of superficial damage? If I recall correctly, the old 3DS had a clear thick plastic layer over the lower, colored base layer; if an air gap managed to get in between the layers, I could imagine some kind of fading action or something could potentially occur.

 

[porko]

I have no idea, I have an Aqua Blue one in front of me and there's definitely no gradient or black on the lid.

Further Googling did find a replacement housing that sported that lid, so maybe it wasn't an official colour but a popular replacement?

http://www.westingames.com/Replacem...for-Nintendo-3DS-Aqua-Blue-WR3DS014_2182.html

 

[Schizoanalysis]

I'd say its a Chinese knock off shell.