I'm curious... why did Nintendo call it the Wii?

[Riviet]

Feel free to also offer your personal thoughts on the topic.

[Ads]

[phimuajedi69]

my speculation:
pretty sure it was mostly a marketing decision, making the name so simple and different generated a lot of talk about the system before e3, then when they hit the show floor everyone was watching and they delivered, magically everyone is now sold on their new system

it may also have something to do with nintendos multiplayer experience (which is really good 9 times out of 10) and now they want everyone to play it so giving it the name 'we' as in 'you and I' emphasizes that

[Yoshi]

i thought it was something to do with the wireless stuff, like wifi and all of that...my mind is fried, i cannot think of the right words, but you get what i mean?!

[The true Link]

i think they where sittin in the confrence room debatin what it should be called, then sum 1 wrote on a big white bored 'What Is It' and if u use the first letter of each word u get WII

[Veiron]

my speculation:
pretty sure it was mostly a marketing decision, making the name so simple and different generated a lot of talk about the system before e3, then when they hit the show floor everyone was watching and they delivered, magically everyone is now sold on their new system

it may also have something to do with nintendos multiplayer experience (which is really good 9 times out of 10) and now they want everyone to play it so giving it the name 'we' as in 'you and I' emphasizes that

Fixed.

[Atomsk]

This is how it went down:

Director: Alright, what are we going to call it?

Assistant: Why not just keep "Revolution"?

Director: .... *Gets out of his seat, walks over to the assistant, grabs a framed portrait from the wall and beats her in the head for 3 minutes. Anyone else?

Board Members: *Wide eyed* Oh my God, we need to get out of here..

Director: Excellent! Wii, good job.

Board Member: ... Uhm?

Director: Someone clean up this blood.

[i0n]

Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.
Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?
Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone.
Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.

^Taken straight from the nintendo.com website.

That should clear up all the confusion

[Napalmbrain]

Perhaps some Japanese Nintendo exec misunderstood when their English-speaking colleague said, "We don't know what to call the new console"?

[DRMARIO]

Perhaps some Japanese Nintendo exec misunderstood when their English-speaking colleague said, "We don't know what to call the new console"?

Ahhhh come on, considering the fact nintendo is japanese, it probably makes perfect sense over there? were english, and we can expect funny sounding names...well to us they are

[phimuajedi69]

Fixed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, excuse my southern coming out a bit....

ps its now fixed in the original too