Nintendo's 'Wii' Just A Marketing Gimmick?

An anonymous reader writes "Tom's Hardware has an editorial up on the Nintendo Wii in which the author postulates that the new name may be a bigger PR stunt than it looks. From the article: 'Saying Wii is controversial mainly in the English-speaking world (the Japanese can't even pronounce it); in France, for instance, it's a homonym for oui. But the upcoming E3 Expo plays mostly to an English-speaking crowd, even though it's an international event. It's just over a week to E3, where Sony fans will be all giddy and running around like they have a Blu-ray chasing their tails. Amid all this, Nintendo announces a name change which is not only interesting, but controversial. You can't not notice it. Essentially, Nintendo steals more than a wee bit of Sony's thunder.'"

Even Japanese TV thinks it sucks!

[spooje]

Yesterday I was watching the Saturday morning talk shows here in Tokyo and they were talking about it. One of the commentators actually said, "In English that word means piss, why didn't they just name it kuso("shit" in Japanese)?!" All the other hosts laughed and agreed.

Re:Bad Names?

[VJ42]

nobody prior to the announcement had registered any tradmarks or websites with the Wii name.

If this was true, it'd deserve an article all of it's own, but look at the update at the bottom of that site:
Update: This just in from Nintendo on the subject of the missing Wii trademark: "Nintendo has filed many trademark applications for Wii. Trademark Web sites often take time to update, and you can expect the Wii trademarks to appear shortly."

'Wii' just a gimmick?

[Valar]

Let me answer your question with a question...

No shit?

Archaic kana

[Dorceon]

The japanese can pronounce it just fine. The language used to include kana with the wi sound ( in katakana and in hiragana), and now they use a kana compound, , like they do with other foreign sounds.

Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it...

[Haeleth]

So in Germany, "Wii" is simply unpronounceable.

I think you mean "there is no way to represent the English pronunciation of 'Wii' in standard German orthography".

That does not mean that the name "Wii" is unpronounceable in German (it is trivially pronounceable: it will simply be read [vi:]), nor does it mean that no German is capable of uttering the sound [w], as you appear to be claiming.

To claim that "Wii" is unpronounceable in Germany, simply because the Germans will not pronounce it the way you pronounce it, is like claiming that "kimono" is unpronounceable in English, because the Americans do not pronounce it the way the Japanese do. That is to say, it's patent nonsense.

Japanese CAN Pronounce it, actually.

[aurumaeus]

"U-I-", much like the referenced "oui" in French, is perfectly pronouncible in Japanese, and sounds the same as "We" would in English. And, IIAL (I am a Linguist), and IAFIJ, (I am fluent in Japanese).

Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it...

[DerGeist]

I'm afriad you're the one who didn't read the GP post, he said specifically that Germans will be incapable of pronouncing the English pronunciation, which is nonsense, since there is only one correct pronunciation, namely the one Nintendo has given it. The GP was very specific and so was I.

No, I don't think Germans are physically incapable but as a German I can tell you it takes years and years of training to sound even remotely close to the American 'w.' It's just a difficult sound to make for us, and I can say almost noone in Germany will be able to pronounce "Wii" correctly.

Re:And the last horse reaches the finish line

[hitmark]

hmm, i think i just got labeld gay...

Re:And the last horse reaches the finish line

[lucas teh geek]

Genesis was too Bibley

poor americans... in my region it was called a Megadrive, which I'd consider right up their with Super Nintendo as a cool name