Judging from the line outside Moscone's South Hall at about 10:15 this morning, it might have seemed like everyone at the Game Developers Conference was at Sony boss Phil Harrison's keynote speech. That's far from true, though, as Moscone's West Hall was filled with attendees either unwilling, unable or uninterested in attending the major speech.

Eric Bendle form Sierra Nevada Corp. (pictured above) said he was heading down to the speech but "got distracted" by the stuff happening on the convention floor. Bendle seemed mildly interested to find out what was being announced at the speech, but as a defense contractor, he felt the content probably didn't apply too directly to him anyway.

Read on for more justifications for missing the speech.

As a way of formalizing the "all my friends think Wii is [insert adjective here]" meme that's flowing through our comments system, we've set out three questions that will reveal what friends, relatives and strangers really think about the Nintendo Wii. All the people in this informal vox populi were shown a piece of paper with the word "Wii" drawn on it and asked:

• how they think it's pronounced
  
• what type of product they think it might be
• once they're told that it's the name of Nintendo's next-gen console, what their immediate reaction is.
  

If you'd like to take part, just follow these guidelines and post your vox pops in the comments. The whole point of the survey is to record unrehearsed and therefore instinctual responses to the name -- so make sure your subjects haven't heard of the Wii before and that they weren't aware of the survey before you asked them to take part.

Female, aged 30. From Hong Kong.

Q: How do you pronounce the name?
A: "Wee" (got it first time)

Q: What does this name make you think of?
A: A urinal? Candy? It's kind of trendy, kind of modern. Maybe a trendy urinal? Maybe a sporting goods product? Maybe something that goes fast, like rollerblades? Probably a product for little kid because it's simple and very simplistic.

Q: What if I told you it's for a games product?
A: Games are supposed to be complicated. I wouldn't have guessed that.