Topic: Email Nintendo and tell them you HATE the name!

[Ian Sane]

"Oh come on, get real. You know very well that's not how a commercial like that would play. But I'm not surprised to see you of all people defending it."

In all honestly I would probably make the Wii guy in the ad look more like a wimpy dork and not make him so effeminate.  Making the guy seem queer would probably make the ad confusing.

Though I don't really like the ad that much anyway.  I personally would use the tried and true k!ddy label.  Another idea would be to have a commercial where a guy tries to buy a Wii but finds it too awkward to ask the clerk for it.  Then another guy (who is better looking of course) asks for a Playstation 3/Xbox 360 and then the Wii guy says "you know what?  I'll just have what he's having."

But then Nintendo could probably use a similar ad that jokingly plays up the fact that the guy finds it hard to order the Wii.  There could be a whole lineup of guys.  Maybe the guys find it hard to say "Wii" and then some hot girl buys one at the other counter and they say "what she bought."  Or have an ad where guys get their girlfriends to buy it for them.  I don't think these are really great ad ideas but at least they seem doable.  I still think "our console kicks ass" is better than "our console isn't very cool but you'll like it anyway".

[The Omen]

Quote
Imagine a commercial where someone comes out and says, "I'm an xbox 360," and the other guy says, "I'm a wee!"

Then if I'm marketing for Nintendo I make a rebuttal about how all 360 players have "console envy".  In all truth here, I doubt MS or Sony will attack the Wii name officially unless it takes the lead by a wide margin.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: The Omen  In all truth here, I doubt MS or Sony will attack the Wii name officially unless it takes the lead by a wide margin.

Like I said, if the wee becomes a threat, count on it.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother

Quote
Originally posted by: The Omen  In all truth here, I doubt MS or Sony will attack the Wii name officially unless it takes the lead by a wide margin.

Like I said, if the wee becomes a threat, count on it.

If Wii becomes a threat, and Sony along with MS indeed do attack it based on its name, that in itself is taking a risk. They could come off looking childish, or stupid, which is why most competitors avoid taking pot shots at their competition by using their name, which is why most only hint at who the competitor is. With a name like "Wii" it would be a blatant attack, and it is hard to hint at who they are referencing.

[Smash_Brother]

They'd likely try to make the kidd!e barb again as that seemed to get the job done in generations past.

Also, it's easy to make fun of the name. They could do one of those "Them, Us" ads: all they have to do is have a fat kid swinging on a swing set shouting "Wheee!" with a really awful voice to be the "them" group. Compare that to anything for the "Us" and us will look better by comparison.

[Kairon]

The US faces serious resistance in regions outside of Japan and the USA... doesn't it?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Edit: Besides, there are already periodicals titled "US" and "We" and "US Weekly."

[Smash_Brother]

Er, that's not what I meant.

I mean that if MS wanted to compare itself to Nintendo and accentuate their differences, it would be a "them, us" TYPE of commercial.

[Kairon]

Aren't all commercials "Them, and us" anyways though? With the freehand controller, Nintendo's commercials will probably come out the same way.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Artimus

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"If they did that they'd be blasted by every homosexual group in the country, and rightfully so. It would cause a huge political fallout."

So just because a guy has a pink shirt and a speech impediment it means he's homosexual?  The guy is asking an attractive woman if she wants to play videogames with him.  That suggests to me that he is interested in women.  But because he's such a loser the Xbox 360 guy gets the girl instead.

Oh come on. A pink shirt and a lisp? What else is that supposed to say? It's the definitive homosexual stereotype.

And why is a person a loser just for wearing a pink shirt? And since when does a speech impediment make you a loser? Well?

you could make them anthropomorphic animals I guess. If the PSP commercials have anything to teach, it's that you can get away with all manner of insulting stereotypes so long as they're thinly veiled.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Since when do g ay guys hit on women?

Also, this ad communicates exactly what I mean:

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac_ads1/networking_480x376.mov

The subtle message here is that mac users are more capable and thus will get laid more often.

False advertising, I've been using this mac for over a year now and I still haven't gotten any Japanese girls who are also cameras.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Aren't all commercials "Them, and us" anyways though? With the freehand controller, Nintendo's commercials will probably come out the same way.

Exactly, and thus you see the angle MS/Sony would play, right?

I'm saying, why give them that angle to play against Nintendo?

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
False advertising, I've been using this mac for over a year now and I still haven't gotten any Japanese girls who are also cameras.

Actually, there are no Japanese citizens not armed with cellphone cameras so technically...

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Aren't all commercials "Them, and us" anyways though? With the freehand controller, Nintendo's commercials will probably come out the same way.

Exactly, and thus you see the angle MS/Sony would play, right?

I'm saying, why give them that angle to play against Nintendo?

I believe that NIntendo decided on "Wii" in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. Unlike others, I believe Nintendo ha a good reason for choosing such a strange name, there is no way they couldn't have known it would be controversial.  I think as time goes on, it will be revealed more and more why it is named Wii through their marketing campaign heats it.

If Sony and MS want to do mud slinging because of the name, then they can go ahead and do it, but like other strangely named things, this mud slinging will have little to no effect on Nintendo or Wii if it is sucessful. Since the name is so different, it has a big chance of being a separate entity from the whole "next generation" console wars, especially if it attracts those that usually don't play games. Like iPod, Amazon, google etc it may become its own entity in people's eyes.  

[wandering]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
He's a loser because he's hitting on some chick but another more manly guy comes and steals her away.

I was actually thinking the guy was just coming up to the other cooler guy, ignoring the girls the cooler guy was already with. But whatever.

I'll agree with people that don't see Sony or Microsoft trying to paint people who play as actually being attracted to members of the same sex. More likely that they'd try to paint the system as 'gay' in the mornic derogatory term sense of the word. Show cute and colorful games side-by-side with badass games or whatever. Of course, they could still have done that even with 'Revolution' as the title.

Really, I'm not expecting much negative advertising directly related to the 'Wii' name. Maybe a stupid side comment on Xbox.com about how Nintendo fans would rather play with their wiis instead of other people or something.

Quote
Originally posted by: The Omen

Exactly.  There's no need to know a revolution is needed.   You think when Rage Against the Machine named their band, they were worried people would think they were talking about raging against Zerox copiers?  I mean, come on....

I don't think the issue is that some people won't understand what Revolution means (well, some people have brought up that possibility, but let's put that aside a moment.) The issue is: who does the name speak to? If you aren't a hardcore gamer, you don't know that gaming needs a revolution. The name wouldn't speak to non-gamers.

Also, Revolution is just a horribly generic name. Try looking it up on Google. And also, the describes what the system is supposed to do in the marketplace, instead of what it actually does.

...But then, Wii doesn't really describe what the system does, either. It describes the system's 'inclusive' nature. Hmm. Perhaps Nintendo Go wouldn't have been such a bad name after all?  

[Smash_Brother]

I'd be quite pleased with "Go" right about now.

Games would be "On the Go", and people would "play some Go" and joke about "Wanting to Go". Not really any urine references there.

[mantidor]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
I'd be quite pleased with "Go" right about now.

Games would be "On the Go", and people would "play some Go" and joke about "Wanting to Go". Not really any disgusting, annoying high pitched sounds there.

fixed.

[Ian Sane]

"I believe that NIntendo decided on 'Wii' in order to differentiate themselves from the competition."

Doesn't having a console that sacrifices cutting edge hardware in favour of a lower price and a new way of controlling games do a pretty good job of doing that on its own?  It's not like they have to name it something idiotic to differentiate themselves.  The whole console is different already.

[Kairon]

You can be different all you want but if you never get the non-gamer to take notice, try it out in curiousity, then remember that sense of discovery, THEN finally pick up a console, then it's all for nought.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[IceCold]

Quote
You think when Rage Against the Machine named their band, they were worried people would think they were talking about raging against Zerox copiers? I mean, come on....

I dunno.. I could see people thinking it was the Luddites' warcry