Nintendo Wii???
April 27th, 2006 by Jerry
Okay, normally I don’t “blog” about general current events, etc., but somebody somewhere up in Redmond, WA must have been smoking something strong. The upcoming Nintendo answer to the Xbox360, formerly known as the Revolution, will now be called “Wii.” Let the endless mockery begin. Slashdot is already rife with it, from the article in the weeeeeeee dept. to the usual “in other news” posts (Nintendo will offer three variants: Wii, Not so Wii, and Frickin’ Huge.).
Seriously, what kind of name is Wii? The official pronunciation is indeed “wee.” Had this been exactly one month earlier, I would be 100% convinced it’s a huge joke. But no. We can now look forward to a world with the Xbox360 (decent name), Playstation 3 (bland, predictable, but they’re kinda trapped by their earlier PS9 ad), and the almighty Wii. The scary part is that there are a considerable number of people up there in Redmond who think this is a great name. Their (poorly done) ad/announcement page is full of the Wii->we misuse and other annoyances. It’s as if some ignorant marketing drone wrote the whole thing in a desparate attempt to be noticed and thought of as creative. Example:
“Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion, No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.”Since when has a gaming console priced at anywhere from $200 to $800+ had to worry about its name being forgotten or confusing? So “Revolution” is hard for Japanese to pronounce.. fine. Pick any other monosyllabic name – anything but “WEEE”… I hope someone at NHQ realizes how stupid this is and fires their marketing staff before Nintendo becomes the laughing stock of the gaming world. Who wants to bet that “Revolution” decals will be available to cover up any hideous “Wii” logos?