Yesterday Nintendo “announced”:http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/04/27/ap2704699.html that its new console, previously developed under the Revolution codename, will be called the “Wii”.
I propose that the console’s followup be called the “Puu”, that Will Wright develop “this game”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27 for the console, and also that the person who made the final decision to approve the name be publicly humiliated by being put in the stocks and urinated on for several hours.
It’s laudable that Nintendo has tried to come up with a name that can be pronounced across the world, “stating”:http://revolution.nintendo.com/ “that”:http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/28/nintendo-wii-console-cx_po_0428autofacescan08.html “Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.” But it’s lunacy to choose a name that evokes urine to the largest videogame market in the developed world, of well over 300 million English speakers in the USA (not to mention the others in Australia, the UK, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, the EU and so on).
See also “Joystiq’s Wii comic”:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/27/the-wii-in-comic-form/, “A Wii logo video from Nintendo”:http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?r=1&type=mov&id=10256, “Forbes’ article on response to the name”:http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/28/nintendo-wii-console-cx_po_0428autofacescan08.html, “Vox pops on Joystiq”:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/28/real-people-speak-out-about-wii/, “comments on Japanese response to the name”:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/28/forum-chatter-japan-responds-to-wii/, “Joystiq’s reader poll on the name”:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/28/poll-results-tepid-reaction-to-the-wii-naming/, and “Joystiq’s commentary on Nintendo’s defense of the name”:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/29/nintendo-invokes-good-names-to-defend-a-bad-one/.
