What's in a name: WiiU

Nintendo recently launched a brand new game console called the WiiU. I know this probably comes as quite a surprise to you seeing as how Nintendo apparently wants to keep it a secret. Needless to say it did mediocre in launch sales. There are many factors that people suspect in this equation of failure; the small cluster of games the device has, most of which are ports of games that everyone has already played, few and dwindling supply of third party developers tagging along or their 'accidental' target market of casual gamers wandering away during the advent of addictive and easily accessible phone and tablet games. But the most glaring and weighty fuckup (that is completely Nintendo's doing) is that no one knows that the WiiU even exists and if they do know about it, they don't know what the hell it is. They think it's a new expensive controller for the Wii.

Everyone knows 'Wii' was a stupid name. If you disagree, you're wrong. Sorry. What the fuck is a Wii? The word 'we' already exists. Maybe it's more like 'wee' as in 'Wee! I'm having fun!' or wee as in small or piss or penis. I really don't get how it can be the name of a product. Next generation rolls around and they decide to keep the terrible name 'Wii' and put an irrelevant letter at the end of it. 'WiiU' is still not a name. In fact it doesn't even resemble a word anymore. It's an onomatopoeia. It's the sound that Patrick Star makes when he's imitating a siren. I think I see what they were going for. It's like 'We' and 'You' put together... and... it's still stupid. It might as well be WiiTHEY or WiiBeepBoop.

The worst thing about the name is the ambiguity. It means nothing... That's not entirely true. The most important part of the name 'WiiU' is 'Wii' as in the previous console which was very successful. If you want to have a successful followup console, it might be a smart move to associate it with the prior, already established and already successful, console. Unfortunately the 'U' part of the name doesn't do it's job at indicating that this is a new Nintendo console.

When You name a new console, It goes (company name,) (console name,) (number/version;) i.e. Microsoft Xbox 360 or Nintendo 64. There was only one 64 so it never needed any version indicator. Look at Playstation, (the best example,) it has PS, PS2, PS3 and soon PS4 like movie sequels. Although a rather boring naming convention, there's no bullshit and people know what the fuck is going on when the number at the end of the name increases by one. There are of course exceptions like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System but you know what, I think adding the word super in front of anything lets you know it's new and different.

So why can Microsoft call their second Xbox an irrelevant name like '360' and Nintendo can't call their second Wii a 'U?' Well, Microsoft actually told people about it for one. But ignoring that, you have to look back at the Wii and the accessories piled high around it. The console is easily the most accessorized gaming device ever times ten. There are Wii Sports things like bats, rackets and golf clubs. There's the balance board. There are handguns, shotguns and crossbows. Then there's the Wii Wheel, Wii remote and Wii Plus. I just looked it up and it's incomprehensible. Is all this shit real? It was actually manufactured and sold in stores?

There are so many Wii tea cozies and Wii dialysis machines flying around, how is anyone supposed to pick out something called a 'WiiU?' It's easy to dismiss any random product with Wii as a prefix as just some accessory for the Wii or one of its games. In context with the rules that Nintendo has established, the name 'WiiU' means that the product is a U. It's a U made for the Wii. This is why people are literally thinking like this:



Should we get one of those new U controllers for the Wii? Never mind. It's $300. That's ridiculous.

Nintendo keeps up their tradition of slapping the console name on every game they can get away with. Remember Wave Race 64, Doom 64, Quest 64, etc? That was stupid and unnecessary but at least it was consistent. Now with the letter U as the focus things are just going to devolve further into a giant muddled punfest clusterfuck.

Look at Wii Fit U. Why isn't it WiiU Fit? The original Wii Fit was of course on the Wii. They failed to give the game any sort of identity and Instead attached Wii to it, you know, so that consumers won't get confused and think that the game is for the Gamecube or the Genesis. The problem now is that the sequel game isn't on the Wii. It's on the WiiU. So it actually has two consol names in the name now but it looks like they just stuck the word 'Fit' into the name WiiU. Then there's the problem with the way it sounds: "We fit you." It makes a sentence. A sentence that has nothing to do with anything. A sentence that if you think about it for too long actually begins to sound really creepy in a Silence of the Lambs woman suit sort of way.

So how do you avoid this kind of disaster? Well, here's what you do; give the console a completely new name to distinguish it from the Wii or name it 'Wii2.' Now I know its not punny or annoyingly whimsical or as childish sounding but it gets the point across. This is the new Wii. Better than the old Wii.

Or better yet, you could use these things called 'advertisments' and tell people that the product exists, what it does and why you'd want to buy one.