Forum chatter: Japan responds to Wii

[wraggster]

We have seen the general response from English speakers on Nintendo's console renaming -- from Revolution to Wii -- but how about a foreign market where Wii does not evoke phallic imagery? A friend of ours fluent in Japanese took a gander at the Japanese news site News 19 to gauge the response in the Land of the Rising Sun. Here are the highlights of what he found:
post 39: "Wee is an english baby word for pee or penis according to foreign forums. This might be bad. May be this is why foreigner's response is pretty bad."
posts 47-49: "I think Revolution was a better name."
posts 60, 62: "It is better naming than Revolution."
post 116: "It looks good if you write it, but awkward if you say it."
post 122: "'Can I have Wii.' It's little bit embarrassing to say it."
The other posts are puns "with a drunk noise that Japanese people make (some people say something similar to 'wii' when they are drunk in Japan), associations with the wrestler Stan Hansen (he does not know why, and neither do we), and the "rest are mostly making fun of the fact that it is pronounced the same as 'wee,' or, in Japan when you say yes, you sometimes say 'ui-,' which is similar to 'wii.'" It's fascinating to have some insight as to how other languages are taking to the new name.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/28/fo...sponds-to-wii/

[GaMeR_2000]

This is why I say "Nintendo Wii" over just "Wii."

[metalspector]

OMG Nintendo and Satoru Iwata must be wii-ing themselves up at what is happening , nintendo for the good of you , just concentrate on the DS were you have great winnings , you are gonna lose tons of dollars on the wii which I can compare to wii my wii makes , I want to help you , once you start manufacturing the wii-s you will be late and the loss of money you will have will be even worse than the dreamcast , noone will buy your console except a few hundreds of people who will probably be the same who bought the N-gage.

[metalspector]

Nintendo , ther is no way you can fix all the bad moves you've done with your new console , stop while you can , admit defeat.

[GaMeR_2000]

Metalspector, 95% of polls I've read with more than 30 votes that had "What console are you most looking forward to?" have had the Wii winning by 15% or more.