Nintendo finally lost the plot

Post by **Xest** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 12:16 am

Okay well I've always been a fan of Nintendo as far as consoles go, Xbox's and Playstations never interested me, their games were far too generic or available on the PC and always much better on the PC. Nintendo's games have always been more original and fun in my eyes but their latest press release left me wondering if it was a joke, unfortunately not:

http://www.revolutionreport.com/articles/read/407

For anyone following the consoles, Nintendo's next gen. console due out this year has been called the Nintendo Revolution through it's development process and now all of a sudden they've decided to rename it... "Wii" pronounced we. Now, Nintendo seem to be under some illusion that this is a good name however I can only assume this is a case of lost in translation, I mean, I can see it now...

"Do you want to come and play with my wii"

"Mummy I want a wii"

"I love my wii"

...the connotations are endless, all the hail the power of a Japanese marketing department to destroy all credibility a product may have

Shi · Post by **Shi** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:41 am

maybe they just dun give a shit bout english speaking audience and their connotations

? sounds weird tho as name, hehehe
now you said that, i got lot of respect for nintendo for not having sold out all of their titles yet to all other platoforms like some devs did, they still keep some uniqueness which xbox doesnt have at all, and sony losing slowly too

Satyn · Post by **Satyn** » Thu May 04, 2006 2:04 pm

I've got about all the consoles there are. Besides the xbox, i used to have it then sold it again then bought it again then sold it again ... (you get the picture)
But not only the name is weird, i really dont like the controls of the new nintendo console... I doubt i'm gona buy it.

Cernos · Post by **Cernos** » Thu May 04, 2006 2:27 pm

Half the time I think that the marketing folks just come up with wacky names deliberately to cause a talking point, so if they have silly connotations in a certain language it just helps people notice the product. "Wii" could backfire though, especially if the console doesn't come up to standard for some reason or other. What a load of Wii ....etc.

The wierdest one I've seen for some time is a Pentax digital SLR camera called the *ist (the asterisk is part of the name, not a censored character). At launch no-one knew how to say it (and there's still no concensus) and people had trouble asking for it in shops (never a good marketing ploy). But it did make people remember the product.

It's kind of like how you always remember what the rubbish ads on TV are advertising but often forget what the classy ads are pushing.

Takitothemacs · Post by **Takitothemacs** » Thu May 04, 2006 3:00 pm

Shigeru Miyamoto a couple of weeks ago mentioned nothing about the change in name but he did explain in some depth about the way in which his vision for the revolution was and the totally new way of controling... very interesting as it was something I was looking at in my Industrial Design degree... rotational switching and control... very cool if they get it right. (You can see some of his comments here: http://www.webchats.tv/webchat.php?ID=260&past=yes)

Post by **Xest** » Thu May 04, 2006 3:29 pm

ShiShi wrote:maybe they just dun give a shit bout english speaking audience and their connotations ? sounds weird tho as name, hehehe
now you said that, i got lot of respect for nintendo for not having sold out all of their titles yet to all other platoforms like some devs did, they still keep some uniqueness which xbox doesnt have at all, and sony losing slowly too

The funny thing is, "Wii" as Nintendo intended it to be pronounced - we is apparently generally unpronounceable to the Japanese/Chinese so it does kinda seem like it's a marketing gimmick for the West.

Cernos wrote:Half the time I think that the marketing folks just come up with wacky names deliberately to cause a talking point, so if they have silly connotations in a certain language it just helps people notice the product. "Wii" could backfire though, especially if the console doesn't come up to standard for some reason or other. What a load of Wii ....etc.

The wierdest one I've seen for some time is a Pentax digital SLR camera called the *ist (the asterisk is part of the name, not a censored character). At launch no-one knew how to say it (and there's still no concensus) and people had trouble asking for it in shops (never a good marketing ploy). But it did make people remember the product.

It's kind of like how you always remember what the rubbish ads on TV are advertising but often forget what the classy ads are pushing.

One of the best I've seen is a simplistic toy-like digital camera aimed at schools the brand is Digital Blue and the product is Movie Maker. When it's spoken, advertised and listed as Digital Blue Movie Maker it becomes quite worrying that it's being handed to kids

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:01 am

http://www.fz.se/bildarkiv/album_show.php?id=1217

/Ankh

Treeeebeard · Post by **Treeeebeard** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:19 am

Anyone wacth the live press conferance on gamespot yesterday?

The Wii looks like its going to be amazing in my oppionion. I think Nin wii will be a bigger hit then the ps3.

Thandruil · Post by **Thandruil** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:41 am

Nintendo has imo always been better than Playstation and Xbox. When i used to work in a gamesshop, we had about 8 broken PS2's a week, and only 1 Gamecube a year. Says enough already imo.
Like Xest said, the games are more fun, and they tend to be a bit cheaper as well.

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:07 pm

I've actually never ever enjoyed any nintendo game - but ive enjoyed several Xbox games and playstation. Nintendo has always felt too childish for my taste

/Ankh