UPDATED: Nintendo has issued a statement pretty similar to Amazon's own wording.

"An internal Amazon.com shipping issue triggered a brief hold on orders of Nintendo 3DS systems while the situation was reviewed, as is common in such matters," said the company in a statement. "Amazon.com resolved the issue, and Nintendo 3DS orders have resumed. There are no issues with Nintendo 3DS inventory or quality. For additional information about this incident, please contact Amazon.com."

--

You couldn't purchase the Cosmo Black version of a 3DS on Amazon earlier today. A note said the decision came from "because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here."

It didn't take long for outlets like CNN to pick up on the story.

Making the situation stranger, the entire time that Amazon had pulled down purchasing options for the Cosmo Black version, customers could purchase the Aqua Blue version without a problem.

Amazon lifted the temporary ban this afternoon.

"We received customer feedback that there may be an inventory issue with the Cosmo Black Nintendo 3DS," said Amazon public relations manager Anya Waring to me in a statement. "The product itself was not under review. [..] The Amazon.com offer of black Nintendo 3DS was removed until we had a chance to investigate the issue, and it was resolved."

Amazon was not willing to expand on the "inventory issue" and why it was no longer a problem.

"Sorry, I don't have any additional detail to share," said Waring.

There were rumors the hardware was flagged due to complaints about 3DS hinges, which can reportedly scratch the top screen. Each 3DS comes with a one-year warranty, and Nintendo's a company historically known for being pretty easy to deal with when it comes to replacing devices.

Nintendo did not respond to a request for comment about the entire event.

UPDATED: Nintendo has issued a statement pretty similar to Amazon's own wording.

"An internal Amazon.com shipping issue triggered a brief hold on orders of Nintendo 3DS systems while the situation was reviewed, as is common in such matters," said the company in a statement. "Amazon.com resolved the issue, and Nintendo 3DS orders have resumed. There are no issues with Nintendo 3DS inventory or quality. For additional information about this incident, please contact Amazon.com."

--

You couldn't purchase the Cosmo Black version of a 3DS on Amazon earlier today. A note said the decision came from "because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here."

It didn't take long for outlets like CNN to pick up on the story.

Making the situation stranger, the entire time that Amazon had pulled down purchasing options for the Cosmo Black version, customers could purchase the Aqua Blue version without a problem.

Amazon lifted the temporary ban this afternoon.

"We received customer feedback that there may be an inventory issue with the Cosmo Black Nintendo 3DS," said Amazon public relations manager Anya Waring to me in a statement. "The product itself was not under review. [..] The Amazon.com offer of black Nintendo 3DS was removed until we had a chance to investigate the issue, and it was resolved."

Amazon was not willing to expand on the "inventory issue" and why it was no longer a problem.

"Sorry, I don't have any additional detail to share," said Waring.

There were rumors the hardware was flagged due to complaints about 3DS hinges, which can reportedly scratch the top screen. Each 3DS comes with a one-year warranty, and Nintendo's a company historically known for being pretty easy to deal with when it comes to replacing devices.

Nintendo did not respond to a request for comment about the entire event.

Thats a shame.

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

Odd

Wow. Who gives a shit?

Clearly a huge conspiracy is abound.

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

 
Fucking Racists.

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

 
Fucking Racists.

Question is, did anyone really try to buy one?

news worthy!!!!...yeah right....begone

Slow news day?

Slow news day?

This is... a strange story.

@DonutFever said:

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

 
Fucking Racists.

And here I tought we were in an age were color didn't matter , fo shame amazon  , fo shame

I can't wait until the Digging Deep episode for the news editor.

@TheHBK said:

@DonutFever said:

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

Fucking Racists.

I was hoping they'd finally realized the bottom screen bezel and circle pad scratch the top screen.

Fucking Racists.

I'm glad CNN got right on this! This is breaking news!!!! Fucking morons.

@Aetheldod said:

@DonutFever said:

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

 
Fucking Racists.

And here I tought we were in an age were color didn't matter , fo shame amazon  , fo shame

You want equality, where is my Aryan white 3DS?

My friend got an 3DS box with no 3DS in it shipped to her from amazon a couple of months ago.

Unfortunately Pat I'm going to have to rate this as your worst news story yet.

Totally RACIALIST! :'(

For a few hours I had a SOON TO BE RARE black 3DS- now I dont. :(

Slow news day?

Patrick, surely there was something more interesting than this happening today?

You know, I kinda find this shit interesting. That news-space isn't some kind of precious holy area to me anyway, not everything has to be major news.

@wumbo3000 said:

Thats a shame.

The black 3DS has larger, more intimidating screens which the average Amazon shopper might find threatening.

@wickedsc3 said:

I'm glad CNN got right on this! This is breaking news!!!! Fucking morons.

I can't believe they stopped talking about Amy Winehouse long enough to bring up anything else, much less this.

@Torrim said:

Slow news day?

nope, pat is just doing what he always does...makes news out of nothing.

@TooWalrus said:

You know, I kinda find this shit interesting. That news-space isn't some kind of precious holy area to me anyway, not everything has to be major news.

I don't think the news-space is precious or anything, but this is the very definition of a non-story. I would have preferred a top 10 list, with each number on a different page to this, because at least that provides some content.

@BeefyGrandmole said:

My friend got an 3DS box with no 3DS in it shipped to her from amazon a couple of months ago.

If that's true that's hilarious.

Sensationalism in news media?! 
Well, obviously that's just unheard of

@DonutFever said:

For a few hours, Amazon wouldn't let you buy a black 3DS.

 
Fucking Racists.

Even this guy thinks that's racist.   

Patrick Klepek: professional news man, ladies and gentlemen! *scattered applause and confused murmurings from crowd*

I actually felt this was interesting to read - some people who weren't prepared to look for other models of the 3DS might have simply assumed that there was an issue or whatever. It's news whether it's major news or not. Sometimes I find the smaller stories like this are more interesting than the bigger ones, like the release of a game everyone knows exists.

Why is this even a story?

When you source your stories from Neogaf you wind up with some weird "news". Okay, I'm being an asshole so positive: the official statements at least make this a bit worthwhile. Not to single you out or anything, the internet is weird and picks up some strange stories, yo. I'm guessing at least some parties involved were hoping this would grow into a bigger story that spelled doom and gloom for the 3DS.

Uhhh...seriously Giant Bomb? 

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel for stories, good god

END OF THE WORLD!!!

Guy reports on a thing that happened, GiantBomb users lose their shit.

SO RACIST

SLOW NEWS DAY!

I didn't know they hired Brad Nicholson back.  Wait, Klepek?  WTF?

Slow news day? Amazon, a massive online retailer, is having trouble with the 3DS, Nintendo's latest console release. Some people might care to know that Amazon may very well have gotten a shitty run of 3DS, and its pretty news-worthy to know about the out-of-the-box condition of a console. 
 
So it turned out to be nothing after all, but at least Patrick saw a little deeper into the story and thought that some people would be interested. I'm one of those people. is it so bad to keep up to speed on things like this?