Nintendo's 'Wii' Just A Marketing Gimmick?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Sunday April 30, 2006 @05:49AM from the doesn't-seem-their-style dept.

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.'"

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Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by Haeleth · 2006-04-30 07:24 · Score: 5, Informative

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.