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Wii Are Not Amused

Mr. Nash

April 27, 2006

So by now, most of you have heard about Nintendo renaming the Revolution to Wii. There’s been a lot of outcry, shock, and just a touch of rationalizing, and in the meantime, the company’s spin doctors are pulling double shifts trying to convince the public that it was a good idea to pick this new name.

With “Revolution” Nintendo had something bold, catchy, and it was easy to tell what the goals of this new system are. Now with Wii, we get a name that is nothing more than a pretentious, esoteric butt of urine-oriented jokes that most people can’t even say without chuckling at least a little bit. Remember, Nintendo, this isn’t people laughing with you, this is people laughing at you. Last I checked, that was bad. Pontiac Aztec bad.

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Seriously, I feel bad for parents of youngsters who want this system come Christmas time. What happens when they ask, “So what do you want for Christmas, Johnny?” and the kid enthusiastically responds, “I wanna Wii!” More importantly, how does the guy at the mall dressed as Santa react in the same situation with Johnny sitting on his lap? Scary stuff.

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Looking at the official press release, and the following media interviews that Nintendo has done to push this new name, it sounds like the company is just as busy trying to convince themselves that they made the right decision here as they are the general public. The press release goes out of its way to draw certain connections that people would never have made unless they were specifically told, all the while Nintendo’s PR wing sound more like something out of a Bush Administration press conference, pushing their talking points, trying to justify what they’re doing, while all but the most ardent hardliners roll their eyes.

Nintendo has been comparing their decision to other companies branding endeavours, like Virgin, the Prius, or Yahoo!. The thing here, is that these names actually sound cool, and don’t take a paragraph to justify their existence, unlike “Wii”.

One interesting argument to come from the pro-Wii camp is that we live in a world of global marketing and that Nintendo needed a name that all could understand. As such, the “Revolution” would not have worked due to pronunciation issues, hence we get “Wii”. Well, cultural sensitivity swings both ways, and I’m sure there are countless ideas that could have been used that would have been far more readily embraced on an international scale.

On top of this, the name “Revolution” has already been around for a year, etched in plenty of gamers’ minds. Up to this point, a big chunk of Nintendo’s work trying to brand the system was done, but now they’re back to square one, instead pushing around their precious Wii.

It’s pretty obvious that Nintendo is positioning itself as the game industry’s equivalent of Apple. They want to be a hip, off beat brand with hip, off beat products, complete with the fierce customer loyalty that Steve Jobs and the gang currently enjoy. If that’s what they want, then more power to them, but they could have done a much better job in choosing a name. “Wii” just doesn’t cut it. “Revolution” was fine, and three times as cool. I guess we’ll see how this turns out, but I just hope that in an E3 or two, we aren’t treated to another, “Yeah, we kinda fucked up” press conference because of this stupid name.

With that, let me leave you with my picks for delightfully crass, Wii-oriented catch phrases.

“Wii: Taking the Piss Out of Gaming”

“It’s good to play with your Wii”

“Remember to give your controller a good shake after you finish up with your Wii”

“Wii aren’t quite sure what wii were thinking”

“Nintendo: Wii don’t want your money”

“Wii spelled backwards is Iiw (pronounced “ew”)”

“Public acceptance of this new name will be Wiik”

“Just a Wii bit pretentious”

Maybe Nintendo can get Hard Gay to be their spokesperson in Japan, and modify his trademark "Fooo~" to "Wii~"


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