According to this article on Gamasutra and this page on the Nintendo domain (revolution.nintendo.com), the official name for the Nintendo Revolution is the Nintendo Wii. It’s pronounced “wee” as in “wee wee” as in “urine”. Here is a screen-grab from the flash animation on their site:
Is this for serious? What were they thinking? Okay, here is an attempt at what they were thinking:
Hmmm, the iPod is pretty popular. Actually, all Apple’s products seems pretty popular recently. We’ve already taken hints from their design and that has payed off with the DS Lite. Maybe we should take hints on their naming schemes. Let’s see… “iPod, iBook, iTunes”… I see a common theme. Maybe if we double the number of “i”s and increase the ratio of “i”s compared to other letters (iPod is the most successful after all), we come up with… “Wii”!.
That’s perfect! It embodies fun! It illicits feelings of enjoying amusements parks; the sounds you make when going down a water slide, and the warm feeling when you are a little child.
(Yeah… like a little child… in the yellow wading pool if you know what I mean ;))
Update: Anyone else notice the similarity to the iiNet logo in using two lower case “i”s to represent people?
Update: Keeping with poor taste, and very, very poor puns: “Wii. Now you’re in the game.” (Too obtuse?)