Wiiiiiiii

[ChrisReid]

Apprantly "ii" means good in japanese, I read that somewhere.

That's technically true, but it's also not applicable in this case. The word for "it's good" in Japanese would translate into English letters as "ii," however the translation from English-written "Wii" back into Japanese is entirely different. They're not even written in the same character set. In order to get from the "ii" you read about to the "ii" in Wii you'd have to perform some language destruction along the lines of translating from one language into another language into another language and then back into the source language via the Altavista Babelfish.

But, if the reasoning behind this name was its supposedly universally easy-to-say pronunaciation, would the japanese company nintendo figure out it was not the case with their own language?

No, that's internet buzz filtering what Nintendo really said. Nintendo said "Wii" is an easy to remember name for people around the world, which it very much is. Companies in Japan use English words and letters all the time. They think it makes their stuff look sharper and more official. The Nintendo logo in Japan is exactly the same as it is here with the word "Nintendo" in a big rounded box. When you buy a GameCube in Japan, it says NINTENDO GAMECUBE on the box and on the machine right there in English. The Japanese Nintendo controllers have A, B, X, Y & Z buttons just like American ones do. So the marketing of the new Nintendo system will be done in English whether the name is Wii or Revolution, and Wii is a much more iconic and easy to remember name for the millions of Japanese consumers that don't actually read English. For that matter, when written and spoken in native Japanese, "Revolution" would have been an even bigger muddle of a translation than "Wii" (d shift on the 're', no 'vo', no 'lu' and the 'tio' in 'tion' would have been pretty garbled - every bit of the word is problematic).

Motorola devised a way to address this problem. Since asian nations that are major markets had difficult spelling the "rola" part, they cut it off outright, now calling themselves "moto" for their celular phone line of products.

Bingo! Possibly the *exact* reason that "Revolution" was nixed as the final name.

 

[Ijuin]

"Revolution" would be transliterated as "Reboryuushon" in Japanese. ^_^;

 

[Pedro]

Except there is no Wi as a phonetic or syntactic element in the Japanese language. There's "wa" and "wo," but "we" and "wi" do not exist. It's a little bit like the Italian "sb" sound. English has a similar "sp" as in 'space', but we find words like 'Sbarro' awkward to pronounce. It's worse in Japan though, because there is no alphabet to sound out something like "sb." Every sound in the language has a specific character that is only pronounced one way. So the closest approximation that Japanese speakers end up doing is to awkwardly smash together two vowels and form a "oou-ii" sound. There's no spot-on pronunciation anywhere, especially in Japan.

Actually wo always comes out as just 'o'. But its not really akward, atleast not for the current generation. Although Wi is never used in Hiragana everyone has grown up with it in Katakana (the number of borrowed words at this point is getting quite ridiculous), and the process of 'shoving' them together wasn't even a unique concept to Katakana.
Even the Famicon suffered from sounds unique to Katakana, 'fu' and 'a' combined for 'fa', borrowed words aren't just common, they're considered cool.
I'll ask my Japanese teacher to pronounce it when next I see her but I'm pretty certain of pronunciation.

Interestingly wi and we did once exist in hiragana (really confused me when I was trying to learn the alphabet and was playing a game designed to help with that and those characters popped up), however not anymore (I've no idea how long ago they were removed either).

 

[Bandit LOAF]

You know Chris is Japanese, right?

 

[Pedro]

You know Chris is Japanese, right?

Well Reid can't be spelt in Japanese, and the CIC has asked for translators in the past so I'd be surprised if he was born in Japan or was fluent in Japanese, but if he is that bodes very poorly for my upcoming exam result

 

[ChrisReid]

Well Reid can't be spelt in Japanese, and the CIC has asked for translators in the past so I'd be surprised if he was born in Japan or was fluent in Japanese, but if he is that bodes very poorly for my upcoming exam result

Yeah.

Actually wo always comes out as just 'o'. But its not really akward, atleast not for the current generation. Although Wi is never used in Hiragana everyone has grown up with it in Katakana (the number of borrowed words at this point is getting quite ridiculous), and the process of 'shoving' them together wasn't even a unique concept to Katakana.

It's kind of a moot point because I posted the official spelling 40 posts ago.

Interestingly wi and we did once exist in hiragana (really confused me when I was trying to learn the alphabet and was playing a game designed to help with that and those characters popped up), however not anymore (I've no idea how long ago they were removed either).

Possibly centuries. They are completely replaced by i and e.

 

[Pedro]

Damn, sucks admitting being wrong. But... yeah...

 

[Mav23]

There's an interesting article up at planetgamecube (which explicitly states it will NOT become planetwii) pretty much summarizing the anti-wii argument.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/editorialArt.cfm?artid=11407

 

[Edfilho]

I got used to "wii", it is weiird (wow, original!) but it's fine. Regular people couldn't tell the playbox from the gamestation this last generation, and these are the new frontiers nintendo wants to invest in.
If the success of the DS is to be considered, they are in the right track to expanding the market. Wii is a lot more memorable than the PS360.

 

[ChrisReid]

New article on the types of games to be unveiled this week at E3: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149308.html

More importantly for Nintendo fans, the Time article revealed several key pieces of information about Wii games. First, Grossman described using the Wii playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. "Now I'm Errol Flynn, sword fighting with the controller, then aiming a bow and arrow, then using it as a fishing rod, reeling in a stubborn virtual fish," he said. While Nintendo confirmed the much-anticipated GameCube title would have some Wii functionality, this is the first official description of what said functionality is.

Time also revealed the existence of not one, but two previously unknown Wii games. First up was the first next-generation installment in the popular WarioWare series. While he didn’t give a title for the game, Grossman did describe its gameplay in detail. "In one hot minute, I use the controller to swat a fly, do squat-thrusts as a weight lifter, turn a key in a lock, catch a fish, drive a car, sauté some vegetables, balance a broom on my outstretched hand, color in a circle and fence with a foil," said Grossman. "And yes, dance the hula."

Besides discussing how the next Madden NFL game will play on the Wii, the reporter also describes playing an unnamed tennis game. "The controller becomes a racket, and I'm smacking forehands and stroking backhands," he said. "The sensors are fine enough that you can scoop under the ball to lob it, or slice it for spin. At the end, I don't so much put the controller down as have it pried from my hands."

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Sounds like catching a virtual fish is the Wii's equivalent of zillions of GBA-to-DS ports using the lower screen for the options menu.

 

[Ijuin]

Well Reid can't be spelt in Japanese, and the CIC has asked for translators in the past so I'd be surprised if he was born in Japan or was fluent in Japanese, but if he is that bodes very poorly for my upcoming exam result

Meh, I lived in Tokyo from 1999 through 2004, went to a japanese university and got my degree in Linguistics there. Draw your own conclusions from that.

 

[Edfilho]

Sounds like catching a virtual fish is the Wii's equivalent of zillions of GBA-to-DS ports using the lower screen for the options menu.

Well, catching fish is the wave of the 2000's! I catch fish in Fable, World of Warcraft, and... er... some other game.

But I guess you're right. I'll be happy enough to put my hands on Metroid Prime 3, Red Steel, Mario 128, etc. etc. They can churn out the fishing games, for all I care.

 

[Death]

Isn't fishing in UO, too?

 

[Edfilho]

Most surely, and probably in several other MOGs, but I didn't play them, and didn't want to make a fool of myself.

Anyway, that being the case, then we should love the whole fishing thing, because it was invented by Origin!

 

[ChrisReid]

Well, catching fish is the wave of the 2000's! I catch fish in Fable, World of Warcraft, and... er... some other game.

But I guess you're right. I'll be happy enough to put my hands on Metroid Prime 3, Red Steel, Mario 128, etc. etc. They can churn out the fishing games, for all I care.

LOAF's not really talking about fishing games or the number of fishing games or anything like that. He's saying that's what the gimmick is.

 

[Mav23]

Well the fishing mini-game in Ocarina of Time was fun enough without a virtual fishing rod. Just imagine how great this one will be!