Ambidextrous Link?

[Nate the Great]

Um, if a person doesn't know what Zelda is, then he isn't a part of the target market, and thus not worth worrying about. Would Nintendo really try to attract more Zelda fans? If anything, they don't have to, because simply by being an action RPG they will get new people to experiment with it. Ditto with Smash Brothers.

Um, will Nintendo ever have to recruit new gamers? That's what big brothers, uncles, and friends are for. That's a fundamental principle of gaming.

[ijdgaf]

You really don't understand at all what Nintendo is trying to do this generation, do you?

Take a look at Wii Sports. Take a look at Cooking Mama. Take a look at WarioWare. On the DS, look at Brain Age. Nintendogs.

Nintendo is reaching out toward people who don't buy games right now. Girls. Middle-aged adults. Seniors. People who don't know the first thing about video games.

Hell, look at the controller itself. It's probably the first time in the history of console evolution that a major console designer has opted to decrease the number of buttons on the controller. Hand your grandmother a gamecube controller, or an x-box controller, or a PS2 controller, and try to explain how to play... well, pretty much any game available for any of these systems. It's not going to work very well. It's not terribly intuitive, and the sheer number of buttons on controllers these days makes video games somewhat intimidating to the uninitiated. And Nintendo's whole aim this generation is to expand the market to precisely these people.

The Wii controller is designed to be extraordinarily intuitive. You really don't have to explain much to tell a person how to play Baseball on Wii Sports. Even the most technologically inept person on the planet could be made to understand.

Forget Zelda and Metroid and Mario. Nintendo's still making these titles because they know they still need to draw in the hardcore gamers with in-depth gameplay. But they're reaching beyond these people as well. And they know "Nintendo Revolution" sounds pretty damn generic to anybody looking on a shelf. Wii grabs your attention. Wii is the sort of name that could easily enter the pop vernacular. The name is not for the hardcore gamer; he's going to buy the system anyway. The name is for everyone you know who doesn't know or care about video games.

I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this, it's been very thoroughly articulated over and over and over for months. Which is why it's so laughable that you seem so critical of the name, yet clueless about its global implications.

And its why its so utterly irrelevant what a few stubborn gamers think about a "W" and two consecutive "i"s.

[Nate the Great]

Um, the controller issue is usually addressed at the start of any game. Remember having to listen to Navi shout "Listen!" a zillion times to "learn" how to talk to someone in the distance and so forth?

I don't necessarily go for the zillion button controller, but very few games use all of them. Basically it's to give the game designer a multitute of options.

To address the issues in the articles:

If you mistake the name of one console with another, you're just an idiot. Even parents of small children (a possible new market for the Revolution) would know what the disk and disk case looks like for the system that they have. Mistaking an XBox for a Gamecube and vice-versa? Who does that?

Revolution is not corny. It might be lame and unimaginative, but it's not corny.

Agreement with the sentiment that posting a website to justify the name smacks of desperate panicked PR people.

Amazement that people think that any press=good press, using the controversy to increase consumer awareness of the product.

"Revolution" threatening to nongamers? How?

Why would Nintendo not want the name of a video game console to sound like the name of a video game console?

Oh, and whether or not the name "Nintendo" is part of the title, we're gonna use it. Just like you don't technically need the Sony in Playstation. Plus with Wii I'd have to include Nintendo just to avoid the toilet jokes. "I'm going to play with the Wii." "I'm going to play the Nintendo Wii." Etc.

[Hejira]

I'm wondering what you'll be asking for when you buy your next Nintendo console. I know what I'd do if I were serving you:

"I'd like a Revolution."
"What's that?"
"You know, the new Nintendo."
"They don't have anything 'Revolution'. They have a Wii, though."
"I'd like the" *[points to Wii] "Revolution. Look, look where I'm pointing."
"I'm not serving you until you call it the Wii, sir."

What do you do? What do you do?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Shooting the hostage usually seems to work okay.

[Nate the Great]

You'd never use the name Revolution to buy a Wii, but you'd use it for everything else, at least I would.

[Hejira]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

You'd never use the name Revolution to buy a Wii, but you'd use it for everything else, at least I would.

Everything else?

"That burrito went right through me, I've gotta take a major Revolution. BRB."

See what I did there? I'm so proud of myself. ^_^

[Nate the Great]

At least someone is. See what I did there?

[Hejira]

...my mum's proud of me.

[PointyHairedJedi]

We seems to have struck a sour note all of a sudden. It never would have happened of course if certain parties had just taken my advice and shot the hostage already (and if you don't have a hostage to shoot at then that's your own damn fault).

[Nate the Great]

"Where's my hostage? I don't have a hos-GAK!"

Aw man, bulletholes are so hard to repair! Yes, I'm back! It's....

THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD FIVIST!!!!!

Oooooohhhhhhh........

Yuck, that really IS a sour note. Anyone have a Tic Tac?

[Hejira]

But...but the Wii was the hostage! You'd really shoot an innocent Wii?

[Nate the Great]

If it has a Wii logo on it, I'd call it a mercy killing. Just like shooting a horse with a broken leg.

Oh, and as far as I'm concerned, any system silly enough to call itself Wii can't possibly be innocent.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I was going to say something about zombie Wii, but now I can't stop giggling.

Damn you, Nintendo, damn you.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Oh, and as far as I'm concerned, any system silly enough to call itself Wii can't possibly be innocent.

Heck, I still can't even say "Nintendo" with a straight face. Talk about silly...

[Nate the Great]

I still wonder what Nintendo means. Of course, I'm also still confused about:

1. The company is called Nintendo even in Japan, where it used to be a playing card company.
2. In Japan it's called the Famicom, or Family Computer, so they're abridging (or fiving if you prefer) English words for the Japanese name.
3. Why we don't call it the Famicom, if it's an English portmanteu.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

Shooting the hostage usually seems to work okay.

Are you sure your name isn't Goto?

[PointyHairedJedi]

I am not a FORTRAN command, I am a free man!

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

I am not a FORTRAN command, I am a free man!

Really...

[Nate the Great]

The fact that more than one of you is FORTRAN-saavy is, frankly, very very VERY frightening. That's not just nerdy, that's ubernerdy! (See what I did there? )

Yeah, I'm a proud member of the DOS generation. I had Apple IIe's back in elementary school (go Number Munchers! Go Carmen Sandiego! Go go GO Oregon Trail! ), but FORTRAN?

Oh, and as an aside...yikes computers have advanced in just the last twenty years, haven't they? I know, I know, once again the upstart 24-year old is showing his supreme ignorance by feigning to be wise in all branches of wisdom. Well, I had to come to grips with my identity as a pompous upstart a long time ago. It's actually interesting work if you can get it.