User blog comment:Hielmiez/Aikatsu Friends! Next Aikatsu series?/@comment-3487190-20180101125527

The main part to my surprise/confusion is that a previous product catalogue leak had AikatsuStars in it, which made us thought that the new characters and things was supposed to be under the Aikatsu Stars series as well? There might be two possibilities:

1) BANDAI wanted to avoild leaks so they used the old mark, not the new one. These products would be renamed as Aikatsu Friends when they're ready for sale.

2) As others mentioned below it's kinda hard to believe that the current DCD system would be discontinued. So very possibly this means that the DCD game would remain as Aikatsu Stars system (so that all old card and new cards are usable) while just the story changes.