Was Nintendo ready for Wii backlash?

Well with a name like "Wii" I think Nintendo should have been ready for some skepticism and backlash... The world is a dirty place, so of course Wii is going to be linked with one's wee-wee as in pee-pee, or penis. In a few years we'll find out that Nintendo's next console, with a "revolutionary" new design, will be called the "Rawd" or "Stiik" or something...

A day later and I find the name quite agreeable.

Yesterday, my initial reaction was, "You've got to be f**king s**ting me!?"

I'm Awesome

I got used to saying Wii now. Absurd name, but hey, Nintendo has a nack for surprising us.

I cannot believe that people are making such a big deal, a/ I do not go Wee Wee anymore (haven't for about 26 years (I'm 28)) and b/ there is WAAAAAAY more thought and meaning to this name that PS2/PS3, XBox/360. Go cry about those "stupid" names, I mean they mean NOTHING.
I'm happy with Wii and I'll go Wii Wii Wii all the way to the store to buy one the day it comes out.... and Wii (my entire family) will have way more fun than you!

If Sony were renaming the PS3 "Wii", no one would like it. But Nintendo can do no wrong! It is a stupid name and there is really no defense for it.

Well, they never actually Trademarked Wii so it could be a fake name to just steal any hype from Sony and Microsoft before E3 and change it at E3.

Well, its worth noting that there is speculation that the Nintendo Wii announcement was a marketing stunt to get attention to the Revolution.

My wii is broken, can you help me fix it?

"Nintedo anticipated a certain amount of surprise and even ?lashback? when they decided to rename their newest console from 'Revolution' to 'Wii.'"

lashback?

The backlash is making headlines and rightfully so. It's not a good name, pure and simple. As Steve Manning of Igor International said in the Rocky Mountain News article, "The biggest key to figuring out it’s a bad name is when they explain it. You don’t have to explain a good name, you have to explain a bad name."

Nobody's going to get the name until it's explained, which is simply bad brand marketing. "GameCube" and "Game Boy" are good names because they're self-explanitory, "Xbox" is even alright as it sounds modern and powerful. "Wii" falls flat, as you have no clue why someone would ever want to name a game console that unless they give you the etymology behind it. It's just not good.

Wow, and America's rank on the world ladders just lowered down into the bottom tenth as its major news publications report with toilet "humor".

This has got to end somewhere.

you spelt nintendo wrong

This is one of the best viral marketing campaigns in recent history. Much better than that Microsoft Origami crap.

And, really, people say 'we' or 'oui' all the time without giggling like toddlers. Grow up.

It's so funny how many individuals "can't see the forest because the trees are in the way", nintendo was branded as a "kiddy" company, I guess the negative reaction to name change Wii by many, shows the true "kiddiness" in them.

joystiq should have a poll about the name, the same as the one that they did a few days ago, to see how the name sinks in a few weeks from now.

i guarantee you that 75% of people will not be so hateful about it.

exactly #14 ive been trying to tell people this.. i mean come on there is a clothing company called BUM EQUIPMENT! BUM EQUIPMENT.. why didnt people make such a huge deal out of that??

What's the buzz? we can get use to it, i personally like more "revolution" or "revo" but nintendo, for the first time, is making the right moves. Who cares if a teenager from UK calls his penis "wee", this name is out from about 20 hours and is taking more attention than everything we know in the gaming industry... i mean, my name is Benito, but my friends don't mind, it's just a name, used to call me and find me in the crowd, "Wii" is different and unique, if this new system is a real revolution his name will became much more famous than this english slang, trust me.
And forgive my bad, bad english... :P

If Wii is and truely is the official name for the Revolution then why is it not trademarked. It hasn't been trademarked for over 13 years. (in America)

This was supposedly the official name for several months now according to several interviews such as the one from Ign in which Perrin Kaplin says that they have been working on a name for about a year and have been thinking of this one for some time - several months.

So if this is the real true name (stated by Rob Saunders in Cubed interview) and then why hasn't it been trademarked by nintendo nor a dummy company / or any company for the last 13 years because ... Hum
Their isn't even a Nintendo Wii trademarked.

The current trademark (which expired on 1993) for Wii belonged to Wilkinson Sword Limited Corporation and was the name of a razor.

If you dont believe me search for yourself and inform me politely. Thank you.

I believe that this is all a viral campaign and by the looks of it nintendo did a great job. Everyone in the world is talking about the Next Nintendo. They are playing by the rule od all publicity is good publicity.

When can I get a black DS Lite?

I'll take one of these, too.

And one more thing; Nintendo, you think that "nintendo" is a serious word? But, as someone said, nintendo now means "good videogames" and "innovation", or are you still laughing at this company's name?

Personally i liked the name the first time i read it, i didn't even read the article, just read "wii", then i found out it was the new revolution name.
WII, with or without explanation of what it means, its a great name for one reason, the endless ways you can play with it graphically. their advertisement on print, tv or anywhere. The only criticism i can find is that it going to look a lot like the Ipod logo. But maybe that's not a bad thing after all.

so long as they don't name the controller stick or piece, the dirty jokes will be in check

It'll only work if they rename the DS Lite "Little Wii"

and wifi play "Wii-Wii time"

"Nobody's going to get the name until it's explained, which is simply bad brand marketing."

You tell me what iPod means. How about eBay? Yahoo!?

Wii looks really, really good on paper. Not just the concept (that looks good too), the way they present it. "Revolution" was not going to be that photogenic.

If the media is bent on making Nintendo the next Howard Dean, there is nothing Nintendo can do. The fact is that no one would be making such a big fuss if MS, Sony, or even Apple made a system with this name.

It's not trademarked. Everything else is irrelevant until this is explained.

"The fact is that no one would be making such a big fuss if MS, Sony, or even Apple made a system with this name."

"I'll take a Sony Wii"

"I'll take an Apple Wii"

"I'll take a Microsoft PISS POOL WHIZZARD"

I agree with #3.

#17, look at the Nintendo DS trademark. It wasn't filed until JULY 27th, 2004! TWO MONTHS after the E3 where the Nintendo DS and name were announced!

So, it's perfectly possible that Wii is still real.

Definitely just a test drive of a name they thought might work, wouldn't call it the definite release name of the system, and based on the response it will be called something else

"You tell me what iPod means. How about eBay? Yahoo!?"

Apple had a long history of branding products with an "i" prefix prior to the launch of the iPod. There was the iMac, iLife, iCalendar, iPhoto, and so on. By the time iPod came around, the lowercase prefix was expected and comfortable.

eBay is actually not very far out there. The little e stands for "electronic" and "e-commerce." It's perfectly ordinary. "Bay" is part truncation of "Garage Bay" (eBay is a digital garage sale) and the location of the company.

Yahoo has been in use for many, many years. Jonathan Swift coined the word nearly 300 (THREE HUNDRED) years ago when he wrote about the Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels.

In short, the names that Nintendo is trotting out in defense of Wii are actually good names with no linkage to urine or other excretory bodily functions.

I don't care about the name, I can always say I'm going to play Nintendo, since the name Nintendo is synonymous with gaming. I just hope that when Iwata starts talking at E3 and says the name Wii, that everybody can clear their minds and not laugh everytime he says it. You all know how it is when you get something funny stuck in your head and you can't stop laughing. Whatever...I guess you can always look at Paris Hilton and how the "so-called" bad publicity helped her.

I still can't imagine myself telling a sales clerk that I want to buy a Wii. It's improper grammar! I'll probably say a Nintendo.

@ Paul Severus...Dude, I've been thinking about this since I heard it yesterday and I don't think it's real either. I'm going to do some research on the TM to confirm what you posted because I think this is a brilliant campaign to increase consumer awareness for the Revolution. The reaction to this is amazing. When major news outlets are covering a name change for a game console, you have to consider the vast amount of attention this gives Nintendo. Look at it from the casual gamers perspective...now they want to know if Wii is any good. "what's a Wii?" "What's it do?"

This really is the most amazing marketing campaign I've ever seen.

I'm sure they knew what they were doing and likely were expecting the urine/penis/little/"WHEEEEEEE!!!!" comments 'cos I'm sure someone somewhere shook their head going "What the f***" until the presentation finished and the name made more sense. Heck, I thought it was weird see Wii and thinking "Why? Wiiiiii? Wheeeee!" and then I read the "it's not about you and me, but Wii" stuff and looked at the animation and saw all the i's coming together to form Wii. It quickly made sense. I guess after E3, it'll feel a lot better... Just as long as angry fanboys don't go pissing all over the Wii booth or something demanding a name change.

VC... PS Pee. And don't even tell me that it stands for PlayStation Portable. In all of the ads it is refered to as the PSP. Box is a euphanism for vagina. Do I need to continue?

Backlash or not, they can do what ever they want with it. I mean they made the console themselves! It's like the guys that make Ferrari's!

They named some of their cars Testarossa or Scaglietti around the 80's and now they called one of their last models ENZO! I know it's the name of the founder. But It's in the 4 letter trend! And going back to my point, they are named by the ones who make it, it's not decided by the crowd! Probably you'll be thinking, "It's a FERRARI! What are you talking about? All Ferraris are cool!". But I bet you that if Sony or Microsoft changed their name, people would be in awe the same way people are in awe with Ferrari. Just because CURRENTLY they're cool, they're hot and they PWNZ.

But only because it's named by Nintendo it get's criticized? Everywhere I read people go "That's why I hate Nintendo" What's that got to do with the company or the product? You can't hate something that hasn't harmed you either physicaly or emotional. Hate is for for somthing that has dameged you in someway! What? Did the SNES Wacked you in the face when you were a kid? Did the N64 somehow emotionaly effected your brain because it's loading times were to fast?

I just don't get I hate the name and hate the brand war that's going on these years with video games. Back in the days people didn't HATE Sega or Nintendo. They each were loved by their fan base and that was it! (Or probably we were to naive to hate back then!)

I like the way Nintendo is going. It's new and unique. And that's what sells! If it weren't for the Mouse in the good ol' Macintosh, WHAT WOULD YOU BE USING NOW? They were not the first comany to employ the mouse comercially, give that credit to Xerox! But was comercially succesful thanks to Apple. And were is Apple now? To most PC gamers, they are the laughing stock of the industry! (Especially FPSer's)

Where is appreciation for past innovation? Where is the "Respect your Elders" lesson we get at school? Only cause you are no longer HIP or TRENDY you get mocked by the New Gen? It's like when you were in school (or are in school) and you don't belong to the "Cool People". Does everything come together like this in the end?

I say let them call it what they want. If you don't like the name but you like the machine, BUY IT! If you don't like the name and the machine, DON'T BUY IT! If you HATE NINTENDO, GO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE! It's a simple as that. But please! Stop wasting time, energy and memory posting some lame WEE-WEE joke or playing the same ol' "I hate Nintendo so much, D3y 1s T3h suX0rz" song al over again!

Thanks for your time!

(And sorry for the long post, this one sums up for all the past articles and future ones to come!)

Iv been following the game industry since I was 5 years old. In my opinion, this whole "Wii" thing has the potential to become the biggest public relations disaster since Sega decided it was a good idea to release the Saturn on May 15, 1995 without telling any of their third party developers.

Nintendo fan-boys can defend Nintendo, and make all the excuses they want.(and I admit that many of the critics of the name are acting like 5 year old's.) But the fact remains,, if you are a company that just released the name of your product, and then your web-server starts to crash repeatedly from all the angry people attempting to log on to your company page trying to voice their outrage at the new name that you just unveiled. Well then, you have got MAJOR P.R problems.

Ant to all the people who say that Nintendo will benefit because all publicity is good publicity, well, try telling that to OJ Simpson, or Michael Jackson. Sure, everyone is talking about the new system, but if the vast majority of the people are connecting your system with bodily waste, well that's not the sort of publicity you will want to have.

The really sad thing about the name is that it will almost certainly over shadow the revolutionary aspects of Nintendo's new system. That fact alone will make Nintendo the biggest loser in all of this mess.

SetupWeasel: we also have PGP, HTTP, FTP, ESP, AP. A three or four-letter word in all caps is clearly and instantly parsed as an acronym.

"Box" and "Wee" don't compare. Box is used to describe personal computers, cardboard containers, forms, ballots, and so on.

"Wee" has far fewer meanings and a more limited range.

Proof's in the reaction. When the Xbox was named, how many column inches were dedicated by the Financial Times and CNN and Forbes alluding to the vaginal connotations of the name?

i think it's offensive on a multitude of levels. nintendo is branching out its demographic, but at the same time it is alienating gamers. i honestly thought of the revolution as a contender in the next-generation console wars, but they are completely taking themselves out of the race. which is fine.

so they're taking the "nintendo" branding out of the name as well. they've simplified the name, made it universal... but there are 2 problems. it can't be iconic, because it's pronounced like the pronoun we are all too familiar with. we have our own associations already. secondly, it is a joke.

nintendo needs to understand first impressions make or break consoles. the launch line-up of the gamecube screwed them over, and columnists are not joking when they say "e3 will make or break the wii". the name isn't intriguing, it's awkward. it's not a noun! it preexists! wtf! honestly, the console should have been named "the nintendo V" (i had a dream about it): simple, universal, iconic, the number 5 for their fifth console, a kick ass letter. they're fucking themselves over.

Is it just me, or is the term "Joy stick" just as disturbing?

Saying that its a bad name because they have to explain it is rubbish. Lets take a look at another entertainment sector, the music industry, plenty of artists have perfectly understandable album titles yet they still feel compelled to "explain" the name does it make it a bad name?

"Proof's in the reaction. When the Xbox was named, how many column inches were dedicated by the Financial Times and CNN and Forbes alluding to the vaginal connotations of the name?"

Wrong. The reaction is a given. My postulation is that there are many more people who have it out for Nintendo. It's a bully mentality. This argument does not hold water. It is exactly what I was arguing would happen. It would, in fact, be stupid to argue otherwise.

""Box" and "Wee" don't compare. Box is used to describe personal computers, cardboard containers, forms, ballots, and so on."

1) It's "Wii." It is pronounced like "we." Using "wee" shows the bias.

2) I use "we" every day, many times a day, in many different circumstances. We, as people fluent in English, use "we" a lot.

3) You asked for names with an obvious bodily function, and I don't hear you saying it doesn't.

"we also have PGP, HTTP, FTP, ESP, AP. A three or four-letter word in all caps is clearly and instantly parsed as an acronym."

So why don't you? I see a lot of "Pee" there. Though I laugh at NASCAR driver "Dick Trickle" a lot, I've never laughed at pro golfer Michelle Wie ("we" again). Nor have I haughed at the songs "We are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You" despite their obvious urinary connotations.

Nintendo thought up something a la "Snakes on a plane". Both are running amuck on the internet right now.

Point, I don't know what kind of vaginas you guys are looking at. They most definitely aren't shaped like an X children.

As for xBox yeah the name was wiik but the worst I've ever felt about it was calling it a sexbox, and well who would like a sexbox.

Wii on the other hand is athstetically pleasing but not verbally. If it were use the same way I call the xbox a sexbox then it would only appeal to perverts and pedophiles. But I'm getting off track here.

Nintendo fans are pissed, not many have attempted to defend it. It's to difficult. Really I'm indifferent, I like the way it looks but why not just change the pronounciation to the Wi part of WiFi?

Also yahoo, ebay, and iPod are all logical and mainstream even from the time they were made. ebay is simply logical, as someone else said relating Yahoo to a work by Johnathon Swift(who I hate by the way), and iPod is just a continuation of a trend Apple started.

I think the only negative reaction to Wii is from reporters(because they love to be negative) and advid gamers, ESPECIALLY Nintendo fans, and ones who thought Revolution was good. Go ask your average person about it, you'd be supprised by how different they react to it.

I for one have found from research and clues that the console will launch October 11th roughly, and well you can fool with the name Wii to support that, just a wild idea is all, probably no connection though.

Anticrawl

"The reaction is a given. "

The reaction's all that matters. Nintendo's stock has been damaged by that reaction.

"I use "we" every day, many times a day, in many different circumstances. We, as people fluent in English, use "we" a lot."

As a personal pronoun. When you parse a word, you take the context of its placement in the sentence to determine its meaning. "X will go to the store" begs for a proper or personal pronoun to stand in place of "X" in order for the sentence to parse. "I own a Wii" has no such automatic context, and creates automatic semantic confusion.

"So why don't you [parse "Wii" as an acronym."

Because it's not in all caps.

Because its location in sentences means that one can substitute words like "urine" and "penis" and the sentence still makes sense.

Replace the "we" in these sentences with "urine" or "penis." Which ones still make ANY sense? (Sure, they'll all sound silly, but which ones remain grammatically correct after the replacement?)

"We will go to the store."
"Urine will go to the store" is not grammatically correct.

"He has a Wii."
"He has a penis." Is grammatically correct.

"I went to the store to purchase a Wii."
"I went to the store to purchase a penis." is grammatically correct, but semantically wrong.

"Do you have any Wii?"
"Do you have any urine?" Is grammatically correct, but absurd.

"We all scream for ice cream!"
"Urine/Penis all scream for ice cream." Subject-verb agreement is out of order. Not a grammatical construction.

You people crack me up. So stupid.

Especially the guy talking about how xBox and WII are different, in terms of stupid sounding names. Just look at the reaction? The reaction is what is stupid. Box is just as much refered to as vagina, probably more so, than "wee" is to piss.

How goofy are you people that that is the first thing you think of? When I saw Wii, first...I didn't even think of it as "wee". And that's the thing, it IS NOT wee. So everytime you hear the word "we", in reference to you and I or "us" do you think of urine? If you do, then you need help.

And the goofball who's been "following the industry since he was 5". I don't that. You were reading and following the industry at the age of 5? Sure. Comprehending it too, right? This makes you a liar. And a nut. Institutionalize yourself.

And then to the lunatic who thinks that they are "taking themselves out of the race" and they should of used "nintendo V" . You had a dream about it? Seek help. Only the name has changed. The hardware didn't change with it. If it was cool before, it will be cool now. If you won't buy it, because of the name - then you probably still wear GUESS jeans.

Chuck Norris plays with his Wii...all night long! Myes.

"eBay is actually not very far out there. The little e stands for "electronic" and "e-commerce." It's perfectly ordinary. "Bay" is part truncation of "Garage Bay" (eBay is a digital garage sale) and the location of the company. "

huh?

i'm not sure where you got this bizarre little nugget, but it's utterly false. "eBay" is the domain name of the founder of eBay's consulting company, "Echo Bay Technology Group". the auction site was originally known as "eBay's AuctionWeb". when the auction business outgrew the parent company, the ebay name was adopted for the auction site (since they never owned "auctionweb", as anyone who accidentally visited auctionweb.com in the early days of ebay well knows.) it's a nonsensical name that's a complete accident of history.

and "wii" is a nonsensical name that's just stupid. not that that'll stop me from buying one.

#43

Marry me. Please. I love you XD XD XD

Your sentences made me giggle a bit. The whole "OMG, Wii = piss/penis" is pissing (no pun intended) me off and those examples made me feel not so bad about the situation"

By the way... Wii or Wee, forget which is a dirty magazine in the states, like a sex mag.

Anticrawl