Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I don't think they're going to rename it again to get rid of the naysayers, but the timing of the announcement and the uniqueness of it was pretty clearly a PR ploy.
If Nintendo said they were going to call the Wii say the Nintendo GameCube 2, would they have gotten near as much PR for the name? Lots of people know they name of nintendos new console, and Nintendo did little more than release a press release, it wasn't a multi million dollar ad campaign. genious!
...that would kinda suggest that they're planning on either
...
1) A name change (again) in the near future
or
2) A different name for the Japanese market (a-la "Super Famicom")
3)
4) Profit!
Oh, wait - I think I got confused a little along the way...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
The Japanese can pronounce it about as well as most loan words, and just as well as "revolution." There's also the added bonus of greater consistency in the pronunciation of difthongs, so it's not even ambiguous.
Aside from the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, I don't think I remember there ever being a cool-sounding console or hand-held name. Nintendo 64? Dreamcast? Xbox... 360? PlayStation? Wonder... [i]Swan[/i]?
To me, all these names sounded ridiculous, and I know I'm not alone. We made fun of the 360's name but now it's pretty much accepted and any complaints about it have nothing to do with the name.
By July, at the latest, this will be a non-issue.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Did Nintendo do this just to get more support when they bring back "Coke Classic" (i.e. Revolution or another better name)?
Even if this IS the name, they certainly got quite a lot of press over it.
I still don't really like it. I'll buy the system, don't get me wrong. They could call it "Magic Happy Leprosy Spreading Bad Smell Maker" and I'd buy it. But I think Revolution was such a perfect name. It was catchy, yet differentiated the console perfectly.
DS was just a code name and they said they would change the name, until they said DS was the final name.
Is this all a stunt? Who knows. We'll find out when the system actually launches.
That said, I'm getting used to the name. Maybe it's like Game Cube and I'll come to like it.
That said the blurb mentions that "wii" is not a sound in the Japanese language (which I've heard elsewhere). I've heard that "revolution" is similarly unpronounceable because it also contains sounds not in Japanese. Is that true?
They could always call it Revolution here and the Japanese word for Revolution there (like the NES/Famicom, SNES/Super Famicom, Genesis/MegaDrive and a few others had different names).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
if this is indeed a hoax. When the name first came out, I was rather indifferent about it. In the end, I don't really care about the name, I'm still buying it :)
... OR ... Nintendo is a brilliant. Why brilliant? Well, what if on E3, they don't unveil the Wii .. they unveil the "XXXXXX" (Whatever the REAL name is) !!!??? Yah .. that would be absolutely pure genius. Not only did they steal attention of everyone for the 2 weeks BEFORE E3 ... they'll steal the attention at E3 and for the 2 weeks following!
However, I did have time to think about it, since I didn't waste my day posting to message boards about how I think it's so stupid like the rest of the world did. What I came up with was rather simular.
Either I'll be made fun of for playing my Wii
It wouldn't have been an expensive campaign either. 1 Press Release. 1 stupid little flash movie up on http://revolution.nintendo.com./ That's it!? And it got all this press!
Here's a little more fuel for this consipiracy fire. Why does http://wii.nintendo.com/ not work? That'd take a whole 10 seconds for someone to create that subdomain and point it to revolution.nintendo.com or even just mirror that page from it. Hmmmmmm? Maybe it isn't the name after all?!??!
Indeed, things that make you go Hmmmmmm.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
I distinctly remember when "Dreamcast" was released that everyone thought it was a terrible, touchy-feely name. And when the iPod came out, we all thought Apple was smoking the eCrack. Even the PlayStation was a pretty dumb sounding name, and was proof that Sony's SNES CD was never going to amount to anything. For that matter, the Super NES sounded incredibly bad to US ears.
Now all of these names are recognized worldwide. They gained traction on the strength of the systems, and are now highly recognizable and much loved. It's theoretically possible that the same will happen to Wii.
Kotaku has a better breakdown of the situation, which includes the nugget that nobody prior to the announcement had registered any tradmarks or websites with the Wii name.
The ______ Agenda
Look I didnt read thge article, but I read the post about it here on Slashdot. I lived with 5 guys from Thailand and they couldnt pronounce 'Will'. But they could pronouce the W, just not the ll'. In fact, it came out sounding like 'Wiww'. Even more W's!. Japanese people cant pronounce W's or E's? Its essentially 'Wee', right? Can they pronounce Wakizashi? So I dont get that.
And last time I checked, all names are marketing gimmicks. I thought we all walked around knowing that. Ive seen countless articles and comments about this. Mission accomplished, Nintendo. Your marketing guys probably deserve their exorbitant salaries now. I hope the console lives up to all the talk. Also, I dont know Japanese, but I believe I heard about some point pictograms have a relation to words in Japanese. That makes the Wii/Controller/Multiplayer concept somewhat Japanese in its thinking. I applaud them for an original name for a product as well, instead of the cheesy techno names like the Playstation or the XBox. What tired thinking.
Finally, how dumb an idea would it be to call a product the revolution if for whatever reason it ended up sucking? It would be an even bigger disaster.
homonym != synonym
Thank you.
--- We are not in the 8th dimension. We are over New Jersey.
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.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
It may take ten seconds to create a subdomain, but, it takes ages for dns propagation.
In response to critics and fans Nintendo will rename their next console platform: 'Nintendo Pii' - now no one will ever need to take the piis out of it again! :P
Wiiiiiiii!
The ______ Agenda
there are no on any of the graphics from nintendo and i couldn't find anything on TESS Either
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Now looking back at my Nakama 1 textbook for oh so long ago, I turn to chapter 3 and have this nice huge section of the book about a little character set known as katakana. You see, katakana is used for "loan" words and in some cases to created sounds that aren't normally present in the Japanese langauge. And while katakana doesn't exactly have a character for "wi," it is a far cry to say the sound isn't there in the langauge. By combining the characters for "u" and "i" you get "wi." Add in a long vowel sound maker and we have "wii." So you see, the Japanese are perfectly capable of saying this word and he obviously has never taken a course in Japanese in his life!
Check the definition of 'gimmick.'
A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus.
Sounds unlikely.
An innovative or unusual mechanical contrivance; a gadget.
Yes?
An innovative stratagem or scheme employed especially to promote a project: an advertising gimmick.
Probably.
A significant feature that is obscured, misrepresented, or not readily evident; a catch.
I don't think so.
A small object whose name does not come readily to mind.
Obviously not.
Let me answer your question with a question...
No shit?
====
Crudely Drawn Games
It may take ten seconds to create a subdomain, but, it takes ages for dns propagation.
Ummm
Go register for dyndns.org
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
http://www.nintendowii.com/ was forwarding you to nintendo.com a couple days ago, and now it seems to do nothing, with no information in the whois lookup.
From the very article you posted:
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."
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.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
You would create the name for the japanese by combining the standalone U and I sounds written out in Katakana (foreign word writing system). Even though it is the fault of a japanese company, thus making it a sort of Japanese word and prone to Hiragana (native word writing system), Katakana is the modern accepted way of writing that sound.
Check the katakana table at Wikipedia. Wi is listed. Unfortunatley, Slashdot ate the unicode, so you'll have to see the glyphs yourself. Wi is completely acceptable / pronouncable Japanese.
The ______ Agenda
Think about it. We're all talking about it, aren't we? Various internet news sources (and print) have reported on all of the hoopla, thereby exposing people to Nintendo and its console who normally wouldn't care either way. People who are in the community who aren't interested in what Nintendo has to offer are forced to consider it moreso than they normally would want to.
There's no such thing as bad publicity!
Took me a few tries to figure that one out. Zonk really fucked this one up though - did he even read the article?
This is the company who brought you this. Which is too bad, since I think the name sounds stupid. I'll probably get one anyway though.
I mean, gamecube/snes/nes/n64.nintendo.com don't work. Only revolution.nintendo.com does.
But you do raise some very interesting points.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
I like the new name, its pretty funny!
The article states that: "Tell me, who had the 'Revolution' on the top of their go-to list at E3, at this time last week?"
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that practically everyone was very excited to see what Nintendo was coming out with at E3, especially after the news about games like Red Steel and Madden (even though I'm not a big Madden fan, even I think the control scheme that it might use is pretty interesting).
I think that the major problem that people have with Wii is not that it sounds like urine or something that is small (at least I didn't instantly think of that), but that Revolution was such a cool name, and was so appropriate for what Nintendo was trying to do this generation. This new name might not be bad necessarily, but compared to what it was, it just simply isn't very good.
If this is all part of some PR gimmick, then Nintendo has taken a huge gamble for nothing. People loved the old name. People loved the ideas that the company was coming up with (after some skepticism about the controller). People were genuinely intrigued by what was coming at E3, and I think they would have been the biggest draw with the old name. In my mind Nintendo just got a little too enamored with the idea of being totally different this time around, and they took it one step too far.
"Did [the Slashdot editor] even read the article?"
:)
You must be new here
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
in France, for instance, it's a homonym for oui
Should have said "in French." French isn't only spoken in France, you know.
Nintendo...and great names aren't exactly a match. What would you say if the next gen gamecube was just called "super gamecube" or "gamecube 3.4" (if it had 3.4 gigs of ram or something...just an example, I know its impossible). Who cares if it is a marketting gimmick. Calling the 360 the 360 is a gimmick, calling it the "revolution" is a gimmik. The new controllers are a gimmik and even sequels can be considered a gimmik. If you people haven't noticed, this whole "game industry" is...*shifts eyes*...a profit deal, *gasp* and has been for some time.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I'm thinkin' the word "Yes", as in Oui Ja board. Yes Yes board.
From the article:
The moment you have to begin to explain your branding in pedantic detail - which Nintendo is doing through both its spokespeople and its promotional material - you're screwed.
On the surface, this seems quite logical. After all, a good brand should be instantly recognizable to the observer. People should immediately know what you are talking about, and why it should matter to them.
But what the writer is missing out on is the fact that ALL brands must go through a building phase. Even the name 'Revolution' had to be spoken, explained, and repeated. (Let's be honest - the name wasn't an obvious fit until AFTER we saw the controller!)
But I digress, back to the point of my post. Every brand must be talked up to become a useful marketing tool. I used to work for GTE. I was there when they merged with Bell Atlantic to become 'Verizon'. Boy did that sound like a stupid name. I remember all the internal e-mails and printed flyers that were circulated, explaining to all of us just why this was such a cool name, pointing out all the absurd meanings behind the name, the logo, even the frickin' colors for crying out loud. But look at the Verizon brand now. Instantly recognized. You immediately know what services they offer, and why you need (or don't need) them.
As cool as the name 'Revolution' was, it's appeal was primarily to the current gaming audience. Just as with the Sega Genesis, the significance of the name was only meaningful to those already interested in the video game industry.
Which is not Nintendo's target audience. Not anymore. It costs too much to cater to such a demanding lot. And the word 'revolution' doesn't exactly conjur up an image of friendly fun for the soft core mass market.
So even though all of us here wish the Revolution name had stuck, that doesn't mean that this name won't actually be a more marketable, more recognizable choice for Nintendo.
And a plea to those companies making game console "skins" - a nice flashy Revolution logo will sell like HOTCAKES!
Must... think up... something... clever!
...with my favorite radio station: WII-FM
(T)he (O)ld (M)an
Last time I checked Japanese didn't have problems with pronouncing Wakizashi either!
I think Penny Arcade nailed it,
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/28
living the dream
I don't see how any of this is controversial. Now if Nintendo decided to name their product something offensive or, THEN the dubbing would be controversial.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
And at the end of the day, that's what the name "Wii" is all about: another in the long line of utterly meaningless names meant to convey friendliness or slickness in a non-culture-specific manner.
And actually VAIO is pronounceable in Japanese with some approximation; "Wii" with less approximation (in katakana it would be rendered as "uii").
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
If you watch the promotional video Nintendo made to explain the thought process behind the name Wii, when it shows the Wii logo at the end, there's a little TM next to it.
I suppose that doesn't prove anything, but I really doubt Nintendo's pulling that complex of a hoax. This sounds more like the machinations of some people who REALLY don't want the console to be called the Wii.
Not to say I don't agree, though, and I really hope I end up eating my words, but realistically I don't think I will.
-Moses
While the code-name "Revolution" expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
This line is a Reggie Fils-Aime line, (for those who ask, he is the chief marketing officer of Nintendo).
This wa sto be expected as companies happen to pull miraculous stunts when E3 comes out so people start blahing about long forgotten products.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
In fact, that's almost exactly how they spell it in the Japanese Slashdot article about the new name. (Their spelling differs from yours only in that the 'i' is in "lower-case" form, sugessting that "Wii" has a duration of two Japanese syllables instead of three, which is what we would have if the 'i' was in upper-case form. But that's getting real nit-picky. ;-)
That highlights one of the biggest flaws in modern research.
When I was a little kid, I most emphatically did NOT like that kind of stuff.
The simplest problem is that "Nintendo Revolution" while merely the codename for the upcoming console worked. It appealled to people and told them what this console was all about.
X-box 360 is just as stupid but since its codename wasn't that appealling, what was it anyway, we could only joke about the stupidity of doing a 360 wich means you end facing the same direction as before just more dizzy.
PS3? Talk about playing it save. Granted when you are the top of the heap, why take risks.
But Nintendo got a trippe whammy, they removed the beloved codename, they added a silly new name and they forgot to just play it safe.
Does it matter? Well think of it like this. IF the name doesn't matter then why did they spend a fortune on choosing it? Marketeers will tell you that your product name means EVERYTHING wich is why you need to pay them big bucks to choose the right one.
So either they are lying OR names matter.
Since Nintendo obviously choose a marketting name rather then just a descriptive name (gamecube 2 or even Nintendo 256 (or whatever)) they believe the name matters as far as sales are concerned.
The real problem I think is going to be with marketing. Wii doesn't exactly tell me they are going to give a shit about gamers. That is fine but the odd thing is that Nintendo needs the hardcore gamers to sell their systems to the casual gamers. I know plenty of GBA and DS owners who are not hardcore gamers BUT they bought them on advice from gamers.
I don't think Wii is a smart choice. Nintendo already is no MS who can afford to loose round after round nor is it even a Sony that can bank on its old successes and hope other divisions cover any lossses. Even if Wii only looses them 1% of sales that might be enough.
For the most part I am not worried about the name itself but rather about the ideas behind it. It really send me on a flashback to the internet bubble when you had countless launches and relaunches all with names thought up by marketing that had to be explained.
That is the worst bit. Even Nintendo realized that Wii had to be explained. A good name doesn't have to be explained. Says it all really.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"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).
is it really proper to use "can't not"?
what can be adequately blamed on management.
Seriously, Wii sucks. It sounds like something off a dum sum cart and not a revolutionary game machine.
Add to that the fact that you don't have to propogate a subdomain (you can create it with your own nameserver).
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I can see the ad's now like nightmares in my head. Don't say that I didn't tell you so.
I mean, gamecube/snes/nes/n64.nintendo.com don't work. Well, duh. You put the directory after the host. Idiot. ;)
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
I haven't seen the first episode of this season of South Park. I have however seen most Stargate episodes, and anime on Cartoon Network on Saturday nights.
Subdomains don't need to propagate. You can create a subdomain and have it working in a matter of seconds. I do it all the time with my domain.
If you *change* the IP address of a subdomain, then you have to wait for the caches to be purged, but creating one is a different matter. A (non-cached) subdomain is queried directly from your domain's nameserver, so there is no propagation delay at all.
They can still rename it to Nintendo V - the pronounciation will stay basicaly simmilar to Wii, but you can always call it Nintendo 'five' if you don't like [vee] - it's their fifth home console (NES, SNES, N64, GameCube) .. and it's a sign for Victory :-)
In response to why they'd do it before E3: Obviously this is to get it out of the way. They know its silly but (for some reason, perhaps a law suit we don't know about or threatening letter, or just "because") announcing Wii now makes it less of a focus at the show. This will not only make Nintendo look more professional for not revealing such a (truthfully) pointless topic and putting stress on it at such an important event, but get all the stupid jokes out of the way. Stupid Joke: I wonder if the Wii will be able to connect wirelessly for all those new wireless gameboy games. Perhaps it will be called...*dramatic pause* Wii-fi...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
"Wii" is pronounced like "Wie?", which is the German for "How?", but is often also used as the German equivalent of "Huh?"
No, be honest, would you label your console "Huh?"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is utter nonsense. Anyone under forty in Japan can say, "We". Slashdot won't display Japanese characters for some reason, but it's written with the kana u and i and is pronounced "we".
I don't expect everyone to know this, but if you're aiming for accuracy and respectability, maybe a little fact-checking wouldn't hurt, hm?
Am I the only one who can't stop hearing "We are Knights who say Wii!" over and over in their head?
I guess it's time for my meds again.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
Next you'll be claiming that their ad campaign is based solely on trying to drive sales!
This space available.
Everybody here speculating about the japanese side needs to simply stop their crackpot theories about the japanese name of the console and whether it's easy to pronounce or write it.
The name is Wii in all languages, and the japanese don't go for the writing, they simply try to mimic the English pronuntiation and write it so that it reads "uii" (similar to "we" in English, as we already know), they even state it so clearly in their own Japanese website, that it's silly to be speculating at this point.
For those without Japanese skills, it says pretty much the same as the English side (albeit condensed), so I'll spare a full translation, but here's the important part: "In the image of the English 'we' word , [...] we believe the concept of the unique controller [yadda yadda]"
The name of the new console is "Wii" globally, unless Nintendo suddenly changes its mind. Deal with it.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
This very well could be a marketing ploy. But right now everyone seems to be expecting a "Wii we were just kidding..." story from Nintendo... However, what if they don't change it? That would demand much more suprise and many more headlines. What would command your interest more "Nintendo: Wii we were just kidding", or "Nintendo: Wii meant it"...
Either way, it's a win-win for Nintendo as far as marketing goes. My hat goes off to Nintendo.
Re. search engine scoring: excellent point; their marketing people must have taken that into consideration. It would virtually guarantee that any name they chose would have to have been completely unheard of in all major languages (except possibly as a little-known acronym).
Consider the other criteria met by the name "Wii":
It's short (one or two syllables, depending on how syllables are delimited in a language).
It's easy to pronounce in all major languages (despite erroneous claims to the contrary).
It looks and/or sounds foreign in a lot of major languages (if not all of them). Thus it grabs attention when people first see it.
It's a homonym (or near-homonym) for other words in a lot of major languages. (Thus it's really easy to come up with a play on words, which leads people to use the word more, whether intentionally or by accident. There will be a lot of people saying, "no pun intended" for a while.)
All of that leads people to start talking about their product *FOR FREE*. It also serves to distinguish their image from that of their competitors.
And, as you point out, the name doesn't factor into the "buy/don't buy" decision-making process. The novelty, quality of games, and price will do that. The name is there mainly to help draw attention and curiosity, and it's doing a bang-up job of that so far.
Thus, despite comments like those from Penny Arcade's Tycho, I suspect someone at Nintendo is going to get a promotion (or a pay raise, or -- at the very least -- a cookie) because of this.
So the Japanese can't even pronouce "Wii"?
They couldn't pronounce Corolla either, but Toyota made millions of them.
I'm not a native english speaker but I've been living in the U.S for a few years now and Wii does not make me think of peeing at all.
It's short, easy to pronounce, uniquely spelled (you won't get irrelevant results when you google it for instance) and easy to remember.
It's a fine name. No more ridiculous than gamecube or xbox. You people just have short memories...
Aaron McKenna is a noted fool and an unintelligent one at that, spewing random ideas he finds in his sock and attempting to play like a big boy journalist. He is fast becoming the gaming equivalent of a tabloid media darling in the vein of every right-wing columnist working for the Daily Star or the Daily Mail.
Avoid this waste of space.
Last time I checked, a product's name is very much a part of its marketing plan...(Yeah, RAZR...SLVR...PEBL...these are just marketing gimmicks...no SHIT, sherlock!)
This all sounds familiar. Like the big deal people were making about Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. All this talk about it being a joke, and how it was such an obviously stupid name. Now we talk about AotC without batting an eye. Its amazing how upset people get over new weird things, but how quickly we get used to them.
http://www.coderoshi.com/
I don't think there's any question that in the last generation console war, Sony Dominated. The PS2 was the sleekest, most feature packed, and had the most games. This generation, I predict Sony to lose market share to both Nintendo, and Microsoft. Why? One reason: Hostile customer relations alienating consumers away from brand loyalty.
o ard=2000105&topic=27851115&page=0
I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Disk Read Error problem that plagued the PS2? The eventuall result was Sony offering a free repair service. I finally pursued this for my PS2 as the situation became intolerable, and was treated so poorly by Sony customer support I ended up writing this in frustration:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?b
I had originally intended to get a PS3, and have given Sony my endorsement in all discussions of this generation of consoles, and the upcoming video format war, based almost completely on my belief that Sony had eventually done the right thing about the disk read errors. I was willing to forgive Sony, despite the PSP dead pixels, the root kit fiasco, their fragile laptops, and just about every other Sony shortcoming that I have encountered over the years based on the belief that they, at the very least, came through for their consumers when they had undeniably screwed up.
Aparently this is not the case, and the keystone to my justification of the Sony brand just disappeared. This was as far as I'm concerned the straw that broke the camel's back. I wish Sony the best of luck in the future, because they will need it. With no brand loyalty, a gaming company can not win a console war, and with no loyalty to consumers there is no brand loyalty.
It is incorrect to say the Japanese cannot pronounce Wii. Just because they can no longer represent it in one character, does not make it unpronouncable. For example, its Golden Week here in Japan. I hear lots of japanese people saying the word "week", and the wii sound comes across fine.. It may not be the most common sound, but it is by no means a difficult one.
As evidenced by three words: Dance Dance Revolution
'W' as in water... 'I' as in eye = why!
Slashdot, news that doesn't matter because it is posted after the entire internet already knows the story and have argued about it with their friends for about a week already.
Reminds me of an article on Angry Gamer about the 5 stages of grief and how it relates to the naming of wii. Seems these guys are still in stage 1, Denial. How about we move onto stage 5, Acceptance, already? Acceptance: Guess what, no amount of protesting at E3 will do the trick. It's not going to change. The people who sign online petitions are exactly the people Nintendo are avoiding with all this. Tomorrow you're going to wake up and it being called wii won't be so bad. Maybe it'll start to grow on you, like mixing medication and bourbon. It's not so bad once you get used to it...
well,just for a experiment XD,when wii was first announced i googled it and thanks to the organizations this gave me about 1,290,000 of page results,now you can get about 8,710,000 page results :3
and probably this will be at 20 million of page results on E3 :3
ROR!
OK, I've turned right; now what do I do?
(ROR is an instruction in NES, Super NES, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS assembly language meaning rotate the contents of a working register to the right.)
as a German I can tell you it takes years and years of training to sound even remotely close to the American 'w.'
Does "u-ie" come close?
Another angle: What spelling do you use to spell a baby's cry? In English, it's "waa". Perhaps whatever German spelling represents the onset of a cry might also represent the W in Wii.
I think Ctrl+Alt+Del has a better outlook on it...:
Here.
I wish people would stop calling marketing "PR" and PR "marketing". I've worked with years (unfortuantely) with both marketing and PR people. I know it's popular to confuse the two (even within companies) but they are not the same thing.
Marketing - is the act of propping up goods or services so they sell more. Advertising would fall under marketing (although they are usually kept separate in department charts). The sole purpose of marketing is to get items and services to sell more.
Public Relations (PR) - is the bomb defuser. They're the guys you go to when the CEO makes a monumental speaking blunder or your factories dump toxic waste into rivers. PR tries to soften the blow (and prop up the company image) -- an often nearly impossible task (that is why most PR people don't stay in any one position too long). Occasionally they'll go on the offensive, such as when the company gives to a charity (they'll issue a press release), but PRs primary role isn't to sell things. It's to save things.
With the word "Wii", I can assure you that PR people had nothing to do with it. This was purely a marketing decision, and the PR people are likely going to have to pay for it. Every parent that asks "Why did you make me ask for urine in a videogame store?" is going to have to be dealt with.
So, in summary, stop confusing marketing with PR. Thanks.
The Japanese can't pronounce it?
;)
What the hell are you smoking?
"Wee" is most definitely one of the syllables in the Japanese language.
In fact, it COULD be argued that the only reason that the extra "i" is in "Wii" is so lazy Americans will hold the "ee" sound as long as the Japanese do with the corresponding Japanese name.
If you're referring to the English spelling, I can see a Japanese user pronouncing that "Wee-ee", but the Japanese version of "Wii" isn't written in English...
Why would Nintendo (A Japanese company) brand their Japanese products with an English translation anyway?
So now it's a dildo shaped, wii controller?
How freudian...
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
This thread seems to be filled with people saying, "I don't know Japanese, but that won't stop me from spouting off nonsense as if I did."
I do know Japanese, and let me tell you that Wii is about 100 times easier for the Japanese to say than Revolution. Revolution comes out as re-bo-ru-u-shon in Japanese, which is just way too many syllables to expect people to say. Wii has the advantage of being much, much shorter, and to the Japanese eye, fairly straight forward to pronounce: Ui-i. True, ui isn't a usual sound in Japanese, but it's not an especially difficult one to say. If you search for it on google, you get about 7 million hits.
So, to all the people who are saying, "Maybe it's just a trick! I don't know anything about Japanese, but I heard they can't..." allow me to stop you there, and tell you to give it up. The name is Wii. It's a dumb name, but there it is. Nintendo likes it, and they aren't going to back down. Case closed.
A (non-cached) subdomain is queried directly from your domain's nameserver, so there is no propagation delay at all.
But don't ISPs' DNS caches cache NXDOMAIN results?
I think Nintendo has been watching this flash animation too many times: http://www.threebrain.com/weeeeee.shtml
I beat you to it, two articles ago.
I'm thinkin' the word "Yes", as in Oui Ja board.
This is Nintendo. Wouldn't that be a "Luigi" board?
Japanese can't pronounce "Revolution", either. There is, after all, no 'r', 'v', 'l', nor schwa in Japanese. They can, however, pronounce 'wii'. After all, if you are going to say 'wii' is a homophone for 'oui' in French, you also have to say 'wii' can be represented as 'u'+'little i'+'vowel-extension' in Japanese.
That Japanese people cannot pronounce 'wii' is idiotic.
...thinks MY "wii" is just a marketing gimmick.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Duh? It's a product name, by definition it's a marketing gimmick.
Look at the teaser, no "TM".
Do a search at the US Patent Office; no patent on Wii.
The plot thickens?
Each language has different ways of representing sounds like a baby's cry, or a splash, or the sounds animals make. Many languages have several regional variants to represent the same sounds. Some differences might be trivial "hehehe" vs. "hahaha," but they generally follow the pronunciation rules of the language in question. I studied German for four years, but never learned what a baby's cry would be written as. My guess would be something like "Uah," but that is probably wrong.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
As an interesting fact, esp since the parent is about googling "wii", http://wii.nintendo.com/ DOES NOT exist.
http://revolution.nintendo.com/ is still the "main" page for the new console!
http://nintendo.com/ still has "Revolution" on it's page, and it still links to the above mentioned revolution.nintendo.com. If this was truly a rock-solid, no-fooling announcement, wouldn't they have rolled out with the new website?
Aren't new Zelda/Mario/Metroid game place-holder websites live the day of the announcement it's in production? It's been several days now and still no wii.nintendo.com! I smell a gimmick. Unless they're waiting to launch the website during E3, but that doesn't make any sense!
Just my 2 AC cents.
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.
What confused me when I visited Germany and spoke to Germans in English (I mostly spoke in German, but sometimes they wanted to use English) was that once they know how to say "w" they say it in the wrong places. They start saying "w" where there's a "v" sound and vice versa. For example, I would hear "That vas wery interesting." Which totally confuses me -- if "w" is a challenge to begin with, why would you err on the side of saying it? I guess it's a case of hypercorrection, similar to how native English speakers trying to learn German will add umlauts to vowels where they don't belong (when speaking), simply because they assume the harder way of saying it is correct.
I tried to explain this to them, but no one understood what I was complaining about (lost in translation perhaps).
I've noticed East Indians do the same thing -- pronounce v's as w's.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Japanese can't say "Playstation" and we all know how much that hurt sales.
I know Wii is an awful name, but all of this "It can't possibly be true and I'm going to make up reasons why..." stuff is just sad. Why a "real" news site is wasting even editorial space for it is stupid. Save it for Penny Arcade. They'll do a better job.
I wrote a whole article on that subject a couple years ago. (I'll paste it in, since I don't want to expose people to Everything2's server lag.)
There's an old cartoon, made in the 1920s, that features a character, an old woman with flowers in her hat, who smiles at a recollection of the "gay '90s". 1890s, of course. Whoever penned the script could hardly have anticipated that 30 years later, after a thorough economic meltdown and a second continent-sweeping war, people would recall the "gay '20s". And he could never have anticipated that the '90s - the 1990s - would be the very last decade, ever.
When exactly did we begin assigning personalities to decades? After all, time is a smooth sweep, not pixelated into segments that happen to coincide with the number of fingers on the human hand. Tracing steps back through the cynical and technological '90s (though every recent decade has thought of itself as technological), the yuppie '80s, the Me Decade (that's "'70s", for Gen Y-ers, who tend to "remember" it as an adjunct to the hippie era), the radical and revolutionary '60s, the clean-lined '50s, the decades of War, of poverty, of prosperity - and there the modern conception ends. Our images of the '10s and '00s (the "aughts", as they were called) consist of black-and-white bicycle riding. Historians can push the concept further, though: supposedly, the American Civil War marked a major starting point for decadedom, an event so defining that thought could not help but be regimented around it. Mark Twain wrote near the end of the 1860s that the time before the war was a time "before History was born - before Tradition had being."
So when exactly did we begin assigning personalities to decades? "Surely plague-ridden Europe was spared the indignity of town criers bellowing, 'Welcome to the Bubonic 1340s,'" commented one wit, "and students of ancient Rome have yet to uncover a text reading anything like 'Welcome to the Visigothic 410s'." Clearly, some prerequisites must be in place.
The first is a collective unconscious: a fairly universal knowledge of current events, and a fairly universal image of their effects. Before the advent of mass media, before technology rendered the distances between major centers small enough for cultural thinking differences to diffuse quickly into each other, only centuries could be personalized: historians studied events far in retrospect (decades are studied concurrently with their existence), and no great technological hurdles limited said diffusion when the scale of time was large enough - intellectuals across the European subcontinent had a fairly unified horror at the dark ages by the time the renaissance was in full bloom, for example, even if their analyses of current events differed radically.
A collective unconscious was completely impossible when most people had little connection to the world outside their farm, grew steadily as farms were abandoned for apartment blocks, and took a quantum leap (around the time of quantum mechanics, incidentally) from the development of recording technology. For the first time, auditory and visual culture could be communicated directly, across thousands of miles, rather than encrypted into sheet music (decryptable only with a musician handy) or textual description, and, similarly, pure culture could now be preserved for posterity - how many people today would know about (let alone have opinions about) swing music if it could only be read, not heard? How many kindergarteners have taken in 1950s thinking-style in the form of Marvin the Martian?
The second ingredient, and most obvious, is a tendency to think of time in blocks. Many historians have attributed this to the usual suspects: consumerism, Americanism, short-attention-span-ism, but judging from the long, clearly recorded history of century-thinking, it is well nigh universal (for those with a knowledge of history).
During the last few months of the '90s, a minor debate began over what to call the coming decade - would the '0
I didn't think anything about Dreamcast, iPod, PlayStation, or Super NES.
I thought "GameBoy" was pretty Christian, but not enough to stop me buying one.
I had no problem with "GameCube" (it's a cube which plays games), and bought one of those too.
"Wii", however, is just ludicrous. It's a really, really bad name.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
They would write it like uii but it would still be pronounced identically. They do have kana for "wi" but it's not used anymore, not even for the wi sound in foreign words.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
There is one major difference. The English (and French and other European sites) all say that the name "Wii" reflects that the system is intended "for the whole world". The Japanese site says that it "can be enjoyed by all members of the family".
This reflects NOJ's huge lead in the "casual gaming" market in Japan. The difference in reasoning also kind of makes you think that the naming decision wasn't quite as global as otherwise reported, it almost seems like the "intended for the whole world" thing is a rationalization for having a strange name, where the primary intention was to appeal to the Japanese market.
The Japanese can't even pronounce it? Sorry, but that is bullshit.
Today is May 1. That means that this week is "Golden Week" in Japan. Guess what! The pronunciation of "Wii" is the same as the "wee" part from "Golden Week". The word may be taken from English, but there is no problem representing the sound in Japanese.
If anything, the Japanese will have an easier time pronouncing it, because the "ii" in romanized Japanese actually sounds like "ee" in English. In fact, if you type "wii" (using the English-letter input system) on a Japanese keyboard, any standard setup will give you the correct pronunciation in Japanese. I would say that this word very Japanese-friendly. English speakers, on the other hand, would have to guess at the pronunciation from reading it. Who can't pronounce it now?
I'm not sure if I could come up with a dumber name without staying up all night eating nothing but junk food and watching Strange Brew several times.
The Nintendo Hosehead.
Named after the intrepid flying dog of Bob and Doug McKenzie, we expect our new Revolutionary console to take off in the new dog-eat-dog world of consoles. Dogs are known the world over and are internationally recognized. Dogs hunt for things we want like wild game, newspapers, and sometimes gross things like slobbery tennis balls. Likewise, the Nintendo Hosehead will bring you to a diversity of sometimes tasty, sometimes thought provoking, sometimes gross game worlds, dripping with fun.
The Nintendo Hosehead. Coming this Fall.
I'd like to add that "Wii" is probably more acceptable to China's firewall than "Revolution". Nintendo wouldn't want some name controversy to keep them out of (potentially) the largest market in the world would they.
(Also, something in the back of my mind wonders if it doesn't have something to do with "WWII"...)
it jumped from 8 million to 9 million now on google x.x
- "yi" changed to "i" Example: "yido" -> "ido" = a well
- "ye" changed to "e" Example: "yen" -> "en" = yen (the currency)
- "wo" changed to "o" Example: "wotoko" -> "otoko" = man
"wo" is still used on its own (as the object particle), but is pronounced the same as "o" nowadays.If you type "wi" into a computer in Japanese entry mode, you generally get a standard-size kana "u" followed by a small kana "i". For example, this is the way the name of the well-known operating system "Windows" is written. I take it this is "phonetically realizing it as a diphthong", but I'm not sure how many phonemes this is, so I won't comment on that.
However, to put this in perspective, it doesn't matter in Japanese if foreign loan words sound a little different from the original. It's not like it's even unusual for brand names invented in Japan to use the Western alphabet to create names which need approximation in Japanese. There's the Sony Walkman, the soft drink Qoo, Xylish chewing gum...
And anyway, if you were speaking English, you generally wouldn't bother to affect a Japanese accent to pronounce "Nintendo", so the English pronunciation sounds a little different, but it's close enough. Does this mean that "English speakers can't pronounce Nintendo"?On the main point: isn't announcing a name always going to be PR? So they chose an unusual name, so people would talk about it, and that makes it a "big PR stunt"? Is that bad of them? Why am I even reading this?
You don't patent a name. You trademark a name. You patent a process/methods to an invention. There is no patent on the word 'x-box' either, or Playstation.
At least you got TM right...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Well, a recent example would be Katoh (W)Ikuko, the nutritionist / author. (OK, she is super old, so maybe not the most "recent" example...) There is no legal problem using the classical "wi" hiragana (or katakana for that matter) in a Japanese name. (See here for an explanation of the law, in Japanese.) However, it would still be pronounced "i". It could be romanized as "Wi", though, and might even appear in the passport written that way. For example, "Kaoru" is classically written with the "wo" kana (now mostly used as an object marker and pronounced "o"), and in some cases, the name is legally romanized as "Kaworu".
I don't think anyone would name their kid "Iku" or "Ikuyo", but a number of other combinations are reasonable. Legally, you can assign any kana pronunciation you want to your kid's kanji, it will just make life difficult for them. Even English katakana readings are sometimes assigned to kanji, such as the boy's name "Raito" (Light) being written with the kanji for light (hikaru). If it's legally possible, someone will do it.
And yes, no question about it, Nintendo is not using the classic "wi" character in their name. That would be an interesting anachronism though!
When I first heard that M$ was making something called the "X-Box" I laughed because it sounded stupid... well, who's laughing now?
In my experience, I have had no problem adding subdomains. They just work. Changing subdomains is where caching issues come in.
That was the joke in the fark headline from when this was anounced.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The MAJORITY of them are certainly no language major, and you can hear it when they speaks english (strong german accent and grammatic :)...). But they never had a problem pronuncing the w english sound like in We, Wii, Washington (no, they do not pronunce it vashington despite what you think and how many bloody indiana Jones film you saw). In other word your post about difficulty of pronuncing it is PURE BUNK. Now if this would have beeen the sound like in the word "thought" you would have a point. but it isn't.
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markting types being so obsessed with product names containing strange collections of vowels that nobody knows how to pronounce? Viao, Viiv, Wii... Luckily, this appears to be limited to electronics, because it would be really lame driving a Ford Veuuaivii, walking around in Levi Eeiwiieu jeans, or having parents who work in marketing and lumber you with a name like Miik or Luaueirii.
When I look at it on paper, the natural pronounciation that came to my mind is W-2
as in web 2.0. But then it's just me maybe I am too focused on the internet...
OK lets get the myth out of the way - Japanese CAN pronunce Wii the way you're supposed to. Yes although there is no specific "sound" to pronunce Wii in Japanese, but they can use the hiragana 'U' in combination with a small 'i' to make this sound. As strange as it may sound to us English speaking folks, the word 'virus' is pronunced as "Ui-rusu", which begins the same way as you would pronunce 'Wii' in Japanese. So lets stop saying Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot with Wii cos "Japanese can't even pronunce it" - that's just not true.
A company is naming one of their products in such a way that it grabs attention from the public? And is timing the release of this name as best as it can?
Inconceivable!!!
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.
Since when do they speak English in France?
will u fucking pathetic sad retards read other peoples comments before you dive in blindly with your shitty 2 cents repeating what 100 people have already said. two thirds of these shitty comments were bullshit about whether or not the japanese can pronouce the syllabol 'we'. I DONT FUCKING CARE!!!
ok now here's my two fucking cents about this shitter of a story. Wii is a fucking shitty retarded name! anyone who says differently is a demented nintendo fanboy, and this discussion is fucking retarded. anyone who says they like the name is the type of retard who would tell the emperor his clothes look great (if u dont get this reference ur a shithead). why am i adding my thoughts then? cos im fucking bored and u cunts pissed (or should i say Wiid) me off!
Wii is a shit name in any language regardles of how its pronounced or spelled, its just shit period. trying to argue its good for marketing etc is pathetic and irrelevant. trying to convince urself its cool by telling others is cool makes u a shithead. wishing that shitty bastard of a money hungry company nintendo would change the name is wishful retarded thinking, as is the hope that its a hoax. if u say that wii doesnt make u think of piss jokes or french yes jokes, ur a lying cunt. its a shitty fucking name that doesnt fit well in normal conversation. trying to point out all console names are shitty is also fucking stupid cos we know that already and this is by far the dumbest shit of a console name yet created.
what u fucking cunts should be realising by now is that no matter what topic u go off on a tangent with, the fact remains that Wii is the worst shitty name ever. O-FUCKING-K?! hey theres a fantastic name for a console! the Nintendo O-FUCKING-K! YEAH!
That's what I meant; my brain mis-typed (patents and trademarks are handled by the same US Office). There is not a trademark on "Wii", as my link indicates.
Creds: I currently work in a Japanese high school, and am between JLPT Levels 3 and 2. Not fluent, but I can manage.
(1) The classical Japanese character for "wi" was phased out in the 20th century, but all teens/adults here know it because they read classical Japanese in high school. The idea that "Japanese people can't even say "wii"" is absolutely false.
(2) There are many kanji that use some modern phonetic equivalent of "wii". However, there is one in particular that all dictionaries I've checked list in both katakana script as well as using the classical character "wi". This kanji looks like "". I am told that "Japanese people don't often use that word, and it's difficult to translate into English", so you'll have to deal with my dictionary fumblings...
This kanji has a variety of meanings (translation is never direct), including:
- shifts and changes
- capable, gifted, talented, useful, having a promising future
- various fate-related happenings/phenomena
It is often used in the phrase "uitenpen" () which means something along the lines of "vicissitudes/mutability". "tenpen" means "a constant change".
If I'm reading my J-J dictionary right, there's also some nuance about changing your fate, or overthrowing the will of (the) God(s), or some such nonsense. Sounds, well, rather a lot like a "revolution" to me.
So, at the end of the day, it seems like Nintendo has decided to change the name from English "revolution" (which I guarantee Japanese people will mangle/balk at) to archaic Japanese "revolution", but they just aren't telling anyone. Maybe they thought they were being clever.
-MJ
Note: this joke null and void for those outside the U.S.