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.[/quote:aa58e860db]