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Nintendo UK Defends the Wii
GamesIndustry.biz is running a story defending the Wii from across the pond. Nintendo's UK boss David Yarnton has nothing but good words for the new name for the Revolution. From the article: "It's like any new name ... it takes a while to get established. I think that you'll find that in not even six months, in a short period of time, people will accept it; they won't be referring to Revolution or next-generation, it'll just be Wii."
is to be able to try it out with my own two hands. I really don't care what it's called as long as it works and has great games.
..OVer here in Holland, they started a new channel called 'Yorin'. First, everybody was laughing and calling it 'urine', but that joke soon got old, and now it's just another channel on TV. And I'm sure all these foaming-mouth discussions concerning Wii will die away in time as well.
Of course the head of Nintendo UK would say that. What else is he capable of even saying?
"Well, frankly, I do in fact think the name sucks. They got their heads up their asses in marketing."
No way.
the problem with wii is that it requires certain intonation, you can't just shoot wii straight from the hip, it doesn't work. just like yahoo, the only correct way to say it is like in the commercial
I had another sig before, but this one is better
From TFA:
Yarnton encouraged commentators to "look beyond just the name, at the whole philosophy of what we're about," and said that he expected people to have a very different perception of the Wii once they've played the device at E3. [Emphasis mine]
This makes it sound like there will be a Wii playable on the floor at E3. Other reports I've heard made it sound like it would only be playable by a few select people.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Steve Vai is still not amused by the new name
NTDOY.PK has been increasing in value for the past week, it's up around $19.15 now, though that is probably due in part to the huge gains the yen has been making in the past 2 weeks.
Monstar L
...this guy sure used a lot of them, and managed to say nothing at all. I can't decide if the article was fluff because of the subject hoping to speak big from a small position, or if the people writing the article wishing they had some scoop, but working with their nothing instead.
We've already begun calling it a "Wii" amongst my very excited friends, none of which could be considered Nintendo fanboys. The name doesn't matter, the Wii will be big, and this next round of Sony vs Nintendo may be the most exciting yet for us consumers. We'll get the best of both worlds: great and innovative gameplay from Nintendo, and stunning graphics with revolutionary technology from Sony. This is the first time that I'll be purchasing both next-gen systems upon release, regardless of what they're called.
DRM = Digitally Restricted Media. This is a viral sig, pass it on.
Normally this would be some nationality bashing thing, but actually I think it proves the point: Wii is fine. Given only one of its meanings is the one people are taking the...erm, wii, out of, and that in practice, you're more likely to hear the phoneme used to describe "A group of us" than "Urine", I'm still baffled about the hysterical reaction to it.
Still, if it does end up being a marketing disaster, it'll not be the first.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Nintendo UK: "Wii think the name will catch on."
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
I have nothing against the name. For all I care they could call it the Killsyoubox, and I'd still be insterested. I just don't understand how changing the name from Revolution, to Wii is supposed to help it sell better.
As in, "You're completely fuckin stupid if you think I'll buy anything called a 'Wii'."
David Yarnton was seen crying "Wii, wii, wii, wii" all the way back to the UK. Film at 11.
Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
Amongst my friends and I, we call it "Wii". Amongst my FOB parents and FOB relatives, all video game products are called "Nintendo" with the exception of "Atari". Btw, the last game my parents played was Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. It requires no English skills, easy to learn, and fun for the whole family. With the remote style controller, I wouldn't need to explain how to play a game with my broken foreign language skills to my parents and/or relatives. FOB = Fresh Off the Boat (slang for immigrants coming from Asia to America)
Every geek has some sort of website, programming or computer project. Here's mine: www.youtasteit.com . What's yours?
That's because you're a rational individual who is already familiar with console gaming and will buy based on technical merit. You don't care about the name, so Nintendo doesn't care what you think of the name. They picked the name to appeal to a more lay audience. What has been perplexing, therefore, is not that "the name doesn't appeal to us", but the name doesn't appeal to *anyone*. Like I said here, if they had named it Flower Power rather than Wii, you and I still wouldn't care (in terms of decision to purchase) but at least we'd understand who *would* like the name and find it more appealing based on that.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
"...they won't be referring to Revolution or next-generation, it'll just be Wii."
Unless it fails, in which case it's just craap.
They're right. I remember hordes of people saying "Vista" was a stupid name for the next Microsoft OS, and I thought it was pretty stupid too, but now it doesn't seem out of the ordinary. What about "Virgin"? Pretty funny the first few times you hear it, but it soon takes on a life of its own.
On the other hand, Americans buy furnature from a chain called "Badcock"
Here in Tucson, there used to be a restaurant named "Wee Went Wongs".
There's also a restaurant called "The Cock Asian" (The Caucasian.. get it?)
and another restaurant called "Cluck U Chicken".. but that got closed down due to underage drinking.
In the case of one of my kids, his name for a certain generation of people was reminiscent of a television character. When I first mentioned the kids' names, a whole bunch of people immediately made jokes about that... And it hasn't ever come up again. (In any case the kids' own generation hasn't seen the same sit coms, and it sure hasn't come up with them.)
(Personally I think Wii is a decent attempt to refer to both the new controller and the networked aspect of the new console. "Revolution" was essentially meaningless and could have applied to anything.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Then the logo would look like lots of people in front of the big 'N".
*thump thump thump*
*thump thump thump*
Wii will
Wii will
Rock you.
The fact that brits like the name is just one more strike against it. Don't they eat something called spotted dick?
I'm not going to take that from a country where people christen their kids "Randy" with a straight face.
BTW, I would point out that your very own vice-president is a dick. Oops, sorry, meant to capitalise that.
Nintendo Whey. 100% Pure lactoserum. Eat down three shovels each days after exercices with juice, milk or water in a mix.
People may get used to Wii but a good name wouldn't take any time at all to be accepted. People felt good about Revolution because actually meant something.
Even then, it will probably only be a certain group of people who accept it. The same gamers who rejected the Gamecube as being a kid's system will likely continue to reject the new console, especially with this name. Furthermore, the average consumer with little knowledge of any console might be put off by the name. Perhaps the child-like nature of the name will attract anyone looking for a system for their kids. Whether something called Wii can be taken seriously by a more mature audience remains to be seen.
the fact that they have to "defend" the name and spend time explaining the meaning behind it shows that the name is bad.
kinda like eating your mom's cooking with a fake smile when it tastes bad and you just have to lie not to get smacked in the head.
if the name was good, there wouldn't be any need to "defend" it or try and "convince" people what it means.
This may surprise you, but people in other countries actually learn and regularly speak languages other than their own, especially english. :-)
That's simply not true. If you want names that are self-explanatory, you end up with crap like "Microsoft". Almost no company or brand names are self-explanatory. iPod? Walkman? Centrino? Xbox? International Business Machines actually changed their name to something less obvious and doesn't use the obvious, non-abbreviated version of their name. Apple ain't very obvious, either.
Besides, Wii gave Nintendo huge amounts of media presence where they can make the case for their new console. Seems like so far, the new name is working out spectacularly well for them.
http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=supermario wiiwithbox8rg.jpg [SNSFW]
"Like it or not, Nintendo intends to shove Wii down your throat."
people will get used to it.
i thought low of "xbox" when i first heard it. could MS get any more generic?
not to mention "opteron" which i'm still not too fond of, but its not bad anymore.
You can't say "it" and "nii" in the same post!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
No, we don't like it.
Every forum I visit that is either about games, or has an off-topic area has at least one thread laughing at the name. We all (well, maybe 99.9999% of us from the UK) think it's a load of wii.
They renamed the Nintendo Ultra 64 to just Nintendo 64. The name stuck for a long time. Many titles picked up the "ultra" name, and emulators that came out later also used Ultra. I suspect that Revolution/Wii will be refered to as Revolution for a long time coming, despite what Nintendo wants to call it. My biggest question though is "what the heck does it mean?" It seems like they went from a cool name that had purpose to a name that seems about as mysterious and awkward as the concept of the system itself. I love Nintendo. Really, I do. But personally, I'm kind of thinking this round is gonna be another Virtual Boy. Great system, great concept, poor marketing, and will live a short life. I could be wrong though.
you're more likely to hear the phoneme used to describe "A group of us" than "Urine", I'm still baffled about the hysterical reaction to it.
It's how it fits in a sentence. You can't use a posessive adjective with "we". Nor can you use articles. You can't say "a we" or "the we" or "some we".
Its similarity in sound to the first person plural pronoun actually makes the name even worse. It's why English speakers seem so apt to take it as "wee", since its place in relation to other words makes it sound like that.
Look:
"My wii" doesn't sound like "my we", but rather like "my wee", because if you take "wee" in the sense of urine then at least it's a noun that can take a posessive adjective, and if you take it as an adjective meaning "small" then it just sounds like you dropped a word off the end of the sentence, which, while odd, is still less odd than "My we", which is just awful.
This is also a problem when it's the subject of a sentence.
"Wii is the name of Nintendo's new game console"
"We is"? Huh? Wrong verb conjugation. Sounds broken. "Wee is"? Oh, urine is? Or are you saying that Nintendo has chosen a small name for their new console, without telling us what that name is?
THIS NAME BLOWS.
Nintendo must be hiring the same marketting dumbasses as Coke is. "Oh, 'Blak' is pronounced 'Black', of course, except that in preview pics of the bottles we had a pronounciation mark over that 'a' indicating that it should be pronounced long, so it would sound like "Blake", mostly because we though it looked cool. Oh, and because we're total dipshits who somehow managed to get a degree in a field in which communication is vital without ever setting foot in an English class."
No-one will make fun of the name after a few months. I mean, when was the last time anyone made a joke about "Uranus"?
Oh, wait a minute...
I mean, when was the last time anyone made a joke about "Uranus"?
Excellent point, I think it has probably been about 15 years now (since I was 12 or 13 and stopped because it seemed rather childish).
Why am I getting the impression that the Gaming community rejects this name mainly because they're the type of social reject that calls their Penis a "Wee-Wee" well into their thirties.
and here in the north of England it is perfectly obvious that the new Nintendo Why Aye will be a great success.
Maybe those of us that despise the new name could call it the "Console formally known as the Revolution".... :)
While I agree that the jokes may die down across the internet eventually, that doesn't mean they and the name that spurned them won't create a lasting reaction that will hurt non-fanboy sales immensely. Nintendo already has to play a bit of catch up after this past generation, and they don't need to have more reasons for people to ignore their products. So I created a petition here http://www.petitiononline.com/revnowii/petition.ht ml to ask Nintendo to change the name, if not to Revolution, to something besides "Wii." Please check it out, and if you agree, sign it and tell your friends about it. Also, the petition suggests that everybody continue to call the system the "Revolution" instead of the "Wii," both to support the petition and to nip the bad jokes in the bud. Please help me out with this!!!
While I agree that the jokes may die down across the internet eventually, that doesn't mean they and the name that spurned them won't create a lasting reaction that will hurt non-fanboy sales immensely. Nintendo already has to play a bit of catch up after this past generation, and they don't need to have more reasons for people to ignore their products. So I created a petition here http://www.petitiononline.com/revnowii/petition.ht ml to ask Nintendo to change the name, if not to Revolution, to something besides "Wii." Please check it out, and if you agree, sign it and tell your friends about it. Also, the petition suggests that everybody continue to call the system the "Revolution" instead of the "Wii," both to support the petition and to nip the bad jokes in the bud. Please help me out with this!!!
This new name has generated much discussion, if shock and awe is the way to go then I say this marketing campaign has been a success at the grass roots level. Come the release of the Wii, every man and his dog will know the name.
I think once again marketing departments have proved they are much craftier than their target audience give them credit for.
That joke was not even funny the first time I read it on /. or wherever, and it certainly isn't now, about 187,282 times later. PLEASE STOP, people with good karma posting this crap is going to make me have to start browsing at +3.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Someone might say that people online whining non stop might warrant a reply also..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I don't think the "Wii" name is really going to be a problem in the UK. Everybody I know has always referred to the Gamecube as the "Gay Pube" anyway, due to its wonderful design and adult-oriented games. So frankly Wii is likely to be an improvement.
after the words "I'm gonna go take" (wee, synonym for piss)
Mario: "I gotta use the toilet."
Luigi: "I gotta take-a me a p--s too."
Yet you don't see too many people calling the PS2 the "Piss 2".
immediately before a noun that the speaker wished to designate as small (wee, the adjective)
Wii is smaller than the Xbox 360 and PS3.
I don't remember seeing Sega's entry for the next-gen. What's that?
Xbox 360. The Dreamcast, Xbox, and Xbox 360 have similar controllers, and all use stripped-down versions of the Microsoft Windows OS. (Dreamcast games could use Sega's KatanaOS or Microsoft's Windows CE, Xbox games use a customized Windows 2000 nicknamed Windows XB, and Xbox 360 games use a new version of Windows XB.)
"Wii" just falls flat.
Check your spam box for a solution to that. Wanna buy some Wiiagra?
And while I may have been making fun of the name, that really is something they should've considered. Throw in "Revolution", "Xbox", "PS3" or "GameCube" into those sentences instead of "Wii" and it would've sounded fine.
Or do you think gamers will completely change both their mindset and the way they talk just because of the Wii?
I doubt there's many gamers out there who don't laugh at the name.
As for my karma. . . what's that got to do with jokes? I only have high karma because I speak the truth, and I don't flame. I speak from experience, not from my ass.
www.linuxpenguin.net