Slashdot Mirror
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 ..."
Also to note about Wii is that the logo looks very
All these jokes have been made about the name but on the manufacturer's site, you'll find this little blurb: So you see, even they are aware of the puns that come with a name like Wii. Personally, I'm glad they chose something other than an old name coupled with a high number (Nintendo 64, Xbox 360, Sega 32, etc.) because that makes it sound like something where bitrate and technical specs are the only things that concern a gamer. And they're not. The thing that concerns me the most is if there's going to be games that I enjoy, Tetris did that with 16 bits so I welcome anything at any bit rate that provides me with entertainment.
My work here is dung.
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: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)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Not only is it worse than Xbox 360, it will confuse the French and also everyone will keep making piss-poor jokes about it.
See what I did there?
Summation 2
Although they'd have to name is Nintendo Shitcock for that to be true.
They changed the name of the Playstation 3 back to that marketing term from the PS2. The "Playstation Emotion Engine", or PEE.
Obligatory penny arcade reference...
This name could either be good or bad, depending on the ads.
If the ads seem goofy and childish, it will resonate against those qualities already represented by the name itself.
However, if the ads are sleek and classy, and the logo is clean and simple (which looks to be the case), then the "Wii" thing could be spun off as "it's cool to be a kid again."
I expect the latter case, of course, and I imagine an ad campaign similar to the DS. At the end of each commericial, if a child's voice whispered "wee" in sort of a mystical way, it would do wonders in changing the perception of the name.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
I think that the second slashdot story in two days on the name of an unreleased console is evidence enough that the marketing folks over at Nintendo have made a sensible decision.
/. nerds won't give a damn what it's called, they'll just want the specs and the reviews. Casual consumers won't remember what it's called, they'll just want to look at the pretty colours.
Why oh why do people care? Hardcore
I seem to remember another device that had a name which everyone chastised in the begnning. Give it time people.
Feel free to add your own
You must have missed yesterday's meeting. Wii-Wii is what you play with when you connect two of them together. The controller is going to be called the Wii-mote[tm]. Wii-li.
(Wii are not amused.)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
"parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") ...""
That didn't seem to stop Pokemon.
So, because of the name everyone's talking about Nintendo's console.
Two stories in two days on Slashdot about the name alone - first one got almost 1000 replies.
Blog articles are popping up left and right about it.
Even months from now, when you hear the name you'll smile or chuckle - because you think the name is funny, because you think it's refreshing, because you think it's colossally stupid and find it amusing that a company can make a mistake this big. In the meanwhile, the names "PlayStation" or "XBox" will just elicit a shrug.
Already - in one single day - Nintendo has managed to set itself apart from its competitors, and generate a huge amount of buzz about its console - without a massive ad campaign or billions in R&D. Just by releasing three letters to the public.
So, remind me again... why is this name bad?
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
whereas the full quote from TFA reads as:
That's quote some selective ellipsing/ellipsissing/ellipsiation going on there.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
(Recycled from a blog post of mine. Cause I'm lazy. But it fit.)
;) ), and I just don't have the time to play every really cool game I want to.
There was an interesting idea brought up in a forum post somewhere else, and I don't recall where, yet the headline went like this:
"Hard core gamers: Do we matter anymore?"
And the second I saw it, I knew the answer:
No.
Gaming, to use an idea that would make Mr. Rogers cringe, is becoming more and more like the movie industry every day. Not in scale or stars, yet in history. The industry was first introduced with small players, making games out of their basement - like initial movie makers with their "moving cameras". Then came an era of competition and explosion - then the conglomerates came into being, and they started to get movie making down to a science.
People complain that movies are all "the same", yet the fact is this: movies sell. Yes, they're going into a slight downslide right now, yet I'd argue that's an issue with technology (home theaters more comfortable and convienient than movie theaters - look at how studios make more money from DVD rental sales than blockbuster sales). yet movies, as bland as they are, make money. They make a shitload of money. They make so much fracking money it's not funny, because they have the formula down.
Was "Momento" a better movie than "The Matrix"? I'd argue it was - yet it didn't follow the rules. It was harder to think through. It didn't challenge. People could watch the Matrix with it's biblical allusions and get the surface story - kick ass people in leather, yeah! Or get the subtext. In "Momento", you had to think the whole fracking movie, and work to understand it.
Nintendo gets this. Look at the games they've been releasing. Is "Pikmen" a good game? I liked it. yet it's not selling nearly as well as "Tetris" or "Brain Age" or "Nintendogs" - the latter are games that you don't have to think about (insert irony about "Brain Age" here). yet these are games that a) did not cost a lot to make, and b) could be played by anybody with more than 5 brain cells. Are they fun? Sure - Nintendo gets it: the hardcore gamers don't make them money. Armies of teenage schoolgirls and their parents do.
What does this have to do with Wii? I think Nintendo, in a way, is making a statement. To hard core gamers, they're saying "This is not your world. There will be things for you, for those who look past the name. yet we are establishing here and now - this system is not for the 'hard core'. This is for all of the girls and grown ups out there who don't get 40 button controls, who will look at the word 'Wii' and go 'Oh, that's interesting.'"
Look at their plans for porting: almost none. EA had an interview where they said they were all yet forced to rewrite games from scratch for the Revolution/Wii because of the difference of power and controller. Which is what Nintendo wants. Let Sony and Microsoft fight over almost exactly the same games and who's cock is bigger in the "HD-DVD versus Blue-Ray" fight. Nintendo will do what Sony did - offer a DVD player that also plays a ton of games that people can pick up and go "Oh, Mario. OK - I move this way and jump. I can do that", while the "hard core" will either look at the name and say "Wii is lame", or will look at the game lineup and go "Turbo Graphix? Sweet - hey, Phoenix Wright Wii version! Neat!"
I don't know if it will work. Or, it will probably work in Japan the way the DS all yet killed PSP sales. (As Tim once said, every time someone finds out how to do something fun with the PSP, Sony releases a patch to break it. Or, something like that.) It probably won't hurt the Xbox 360 sales, since for all the money it's losing it's supported by a monopoly that hopes for more, and PS3 sales probably won't matter because of the Wii.
Yet I think that Nintendo did the name on purpose, knowing it would piss off the "hard core". I'll probably get one, because I've got 3 kids and a wife who only plays "Tetris" and "Brain Age" (I leave the DS at home for her to play while I'm out working - which will be my excuse for why we need to buy a DS Lite when it comes out
(Shrug.) Guess we'll see more at E3.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
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