Both Sides of Wii

Yesterday Nintendo released the official name for their next console. Formerly the Revolution, and now simply called Wii, reaction has been strong among gaming fans. A Brian Crecente article in the Rocky Mountain News looks at why Wii is bad, from a marketing perspective. Chris Kohler, over at Game|Life, looks at why Wii is good because of its iconoclastic nature. And, always happy to help with the irreverent, Games.net examines why Wii is weird. From that article: "We don't think Nintendo Wii is a truly terrible console name, but it's an uncharacteristically risky choice, even for Nintendo. We admire its simplicity and its playfulness (the two i's represent multiplayer action, you see). But on the flip side, parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") and hardcore gamers will slam it ..."

Igor international?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

From the first blog:

It's interesting how bad it is, said Steve Manning, managing director of branding company Igor International, the company behind such names as MTV's Urge and The Signature at MGM Grand. I don't know who's going to love it.[emp mine]

Right. Someone from 'Igor international' who created 'Urge' shouldn't criticise anything

Anyway, the only really thoughtful paragraph in any of the articles was from the Gamelife blog - and it was a quote from the comments to an earlier article:

Talking to people that have worked in games retail, you find that normal people can't/don't/won't keep the names of the systems straight. People ask for PlayStation 360s and PlayCubes and Mario on Xbox even though they actually own a GameCube - to them the system names are confusing and completely interchangeable.

This is basically Nintendo trying to create a name and brand that is in no way similar to the others, in order to be distinct in the minds of consumers. They see the ad, they actually retain the correct name, and they go and ask for it at the store.

Also, while it may sound dumb to us, you know that they focus-tested the hell out of it in all three territories and, at the very least, it's not completely repellent to those focus groups.

That's as good an explanation as any I've heard (in fact all the good speculation I've read about on not just this story, but just about anything recent, has come from random members of the public rather then the pundits)

Re:Nintendo's Wii akin to Chevrolet's Nova?

[vadim_t]

I wonder why people keep bringing the "nova" example when there are much better ones.

Mitsubishi Pajero: "Pajero", in Spain means literally "wanker". No need for weird interpretations.

Mazda Laputa: Will be heard as "Mazda la puta", or "Mazda the whore". "Mazda" also sounds like a female name.

Nope..."we" is not a native Japanese sound

[Ogemaniac]

They took it directly from English. 99% of Japanese under 50 probably know the meaning of the word.

Re:French pronounciation of w : an open discussion

[MORB]

You're right about "wagon", and "wisigoth". I don't know about "awalé".

But the most commonly used words with W in french are pronounced roughly like in english: sandwich, wifi, clown, interview, watt, etc.
"wagon" and "wisigoth" are not employed very often (unless your work is related to trains, you're not going to talk about wagons very often)

When we see a W randomly put in a made-up word, we're intuitively going to pronounce it like in english, not v in any case :)

Re:Back in the day...

[Daetrin]

I seem to remember another device that had a name which everyone chastised in the begnning. Give it time people.

"iPod" however has four things going for it that "Wii" doesn't.

It has more than one syllable. I don't know why the name "Wii" being so short bothers me, but it does, it's like you forgot to keep speaking halfway through the name. Two or three syllables makes a word sound more like a name and less like an attempt to create a new root word in the language.

It has a pretty clear pronounciation, at least when you take the capitalization into consideration. The "real" pronounciation of "Wii" is probably pretty easy to remember for Japanese speakers but for English speakers it not only isn't clear, it even seems to promote the wrong interpretation.

It's not a homonym for either urine or something small. Or the french word for "yes." Not to mention the intended pun of "we." I'm going to get really sick of the repeated stupid jokes from the PS3 and 360 fanboys over the next however many years.

Finally, and this is purely my own opinion, "iPod" is not increadibly freakin stupid. When i first heard the name "iPod" i thought "that's kinda weird" not "that's the stupidest name i've ever heard."