Breaking news! Announced this morning, the Revolution will not be televised! Instead, Nintendo has decided to name its next-gen console Wii.
And in other breaking news, we’ve hit 150 posts!
You can mosey over to the official Revolution/Wii website for Nintendo’s statement and some animated vowels. Gamasutra reports on a few more details about the system as a whole. And judging by Digg, alot of people think the name is stupid. I certainly won’t be swayed one way or another just because of a system’s name (unless the name was something like “Nintendo RacistOvertones” or “Sony Wifebeater.”) The name certainly isn’t “cool” by my estimation, and the 13 year old boy market probably won’t like it, but maybe Nintendo will do what they claim and bring in a whole new segment of the population into videogaming. Sounds good to me, but for me as a cynical gamer, it’ll be all about the software.
On the plus side, it does remind me of Gonads and Strife.
Oh, and as I said, we hit 150 posts! How are we doing? Anything you’d like to see? Please let us know!
I think it’s extremely clever marketing toward a wide variety of nations, cultures, and ages. Yes, many people will think it is stupid and many other bad things, but in the end it has more meaning and is more interesting then a simple name like “Revolution” or “360” or even “GameCube” and “Playstation”.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Nintendo is going out on a metaphorical limb, giving their system a name that is both a title and a symbol at the same time. Much like Half-Life’s lambda symbol, or the X-Box’s X. It’s out there, but I would like to make the argument that it is out there in a -good- way.
http://wiiwillrockyou.ytmnd.com/
For those of you who don’t read Penny Arcade, or who haven’t seen this yet, you should.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic
This link goes to their most current comic, so in a day or so it won’t be the same comic. Just go back a couple strips and you’ll find it. It’s called “Whence Wii”. Enjoy.
Wil Wheaton comments along similar lines:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/05/consoles_and_st.html
Gah, he made a much better reference with his post title, consarnit.