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Nintendo's 'Wii' Just A Marketing Gimmick?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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.'"

9 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Free PR by 9mm+Censor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  2. If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by djkitsch · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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...

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    1. Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by miyako · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IDNSJ (I Do Not Speak Japanese) but it seems unlikely that it would be true to say "the japanese can't pronounce it".
      It seems more likely that they will use the same stylized logo and spelling (IIRC romanji is considered very stylish in japan anyway) and simply adjust the pronounciation to fit the local language.
      In English speaking countries, it is "We"
      In German speaking countries, "wie"
      In French speaking countries, "oui"
      ..etc. It's actually quite clever because it is a word in each of those languages. A single name and logo, and one can get "Wii play together" or "Parole juste Wii" (just say yes) or "Wii wir umziehen, wii wir spielen" (how we move, how we play).
      These are just theoretical ideas of course, but it nintendo were able to do find homonyms in other languages, it could create a globally recognized product name.

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    2. Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by hunterx11 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      "Wi" is not a phoneme in modern Japanese. The reason the hiragana for it is no longer used is that "wi" became "i" in all positions in Japanese. Although "ui" can be phonetically realized as a diphthong, phonemically it is still two morae.

      Put in a different perspective, voiceless "l" occurs phonetically in English, but English-speakers would probably find the name "Hlii" a bit awkward.

      --
      English is easier said than done.
    3. Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by Haeleth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Put in a different perspective, voiceless "l" occurs phonetically in English, but English-speakers would probably find the name "Hlii" a bit awkward.

      That's a better example than you may realise, given that (like /wi/ in Japanese) initial /hl/ is a cluster that was perfectly ordinary in Old English, but has fallen out of use.

      In the case of English /hl/, the change was to /l/: Old English hlaford becomes Modern English lord.

    4. Re:If the Japanese can't pronounce it... by Haeleth · · 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.

  3. The New Coke by MBCook · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As hard as I find it to believe, I'm not against the idea that this is another "New Coke".

    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).

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    1. Re:The New Coke by shirai · · Score: 5, Funny

      Japanese seem to have a thing for liking made up names that are not easy to pronounce in Japanese. I'm Japanese and I remember making fun of all of the Japanese car names because most could not be pronounced in Japanese.

      * Honda Accord (can't pronounce "r")
      * Honda Civic (can't pronounce "v")
      * Acura (can't pronounce "r")
      * Integra (can't pronounce "r")
      * Legend (can't pronounce "l")
      * Camry ( no 'r')
      * Corolla (holy crap!)
      * Celica (no 'l')
      * Supra (no 'r')
      * Avalon (no 'r')

      I say no 'l' and no 'r' but they have a similar sound which is halfway between 'l' and 'r' which is why Japanese often mix these two letters up.

      I was just going to comment that this may be less now that Acura has switched to letters but actually, that's not entirely true either.

      * RL (both letters not easy to pronounce)
      * TL (L?)
      * RSX (R?)

      Anyways, the fact that it can't be pronounced is not an impediment to them using that name. In fact, I think for many using these sounds make the products sound more upmarket. Besides, Revolution is also difficult to pronounce in Japanese.

      p.s. wii would most likely be pronounced like oo-ee.

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  4. We are the Knights... by Skraut · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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