Motorola confirms it won’t be releasing a Moto Z3 Force version this year

Motorola unveiled its new Moto Z3 handset today at an event in Chicago, and the company announced later on in the afternoon on Twitter that it’s breaking with tradition with the third installment in its Z Series. Unlike with the Z2 and the original Moto Z, the Z3 won’t be getting a shatterproof Force version — at least not this year.

“We will not be launching any more Moto Z’s this year,” the company’s official US Twitter account announced. (There is already a midrange Moto Z3 Play, announced back in June.)

There’s a number of reasons why Motorola may be shying away from its more durable variant. For one, sales on previous Force devices may be pretty minuscule when compared with the sales of the main Z Series phones. There’s also an element of marketing: having three phones with the same names might be confusing customers, some of whom may not really be keeping up with Motorola’s naming schemes.

Certainly reducing the number of device variants on the market will help in both areas there. Although there is still the possibility that Motorola could release a version of the Z3 with its ShatterShield screen protection technology at some point this year or next, just under a different name.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Motorola won’t be releasing a Moto Z3 Play version. That is incorrect; the company unveiled that device in June ahead of the official Z3 launch. We regret the error.