best/favourite console naming?

[SlimJim]

Personally, I really liked the "Ultra 64", or the "Nintendo Revolution".
But I believe the best naming to be "PlayStation 2", "PlayStation 3", "PlayStation 4" etcetera.
It shows great confidence, and it's just great continuity.

Xbox 360 was another great name: it showed a new direction and it showed it was not just another Xbox.

What are your favourite console names, and why?

 

[TomRL]

Atari Jaguar
/Thread

 

[SlimJim]

I forgot: the Sega Saturn was great as well, it had a really futuristic and powerful vibe to it.

 

[Rangers]

Atari Jaguar
/Thread

It's successor was going to be called "Panther" even better

For this thread umm, I dont know!

I guess it just points out most console names have been pretty horrendous. SNES? Super Nintendo? I'm still not even clear on how people in real life say NES and SNES.

Wii, Wii U? Bleh. 3DS? BLEH

Call me biased but I kinda like Xbox, I guess. More as short for Direct X Box. But it's no Panther Playstation is bland.

Ultra 64 would be cool, bit of course they didn't call it that.

At least Saturn was a word...

Dreamcast as a name well, sucks imo

3DO? Another horrible one.

Game Gear? WTF?

Lynx...now that's cool I guess...

I liked Turbo Graphics 16 also as a name. A little too complex I guess.

Supergrafx, now that's pretty neat, just exudes power, as was it's slotting back in the day.

Sega Genesis was kind of lame. Hell you can tell that by people's annoying habit to still call it Mega Drive (even worse) in the west.

Sega Master System? Among the worst...

Xbox 360, judging the 360 part, not great. I think in time I even like Xbox One better. It still feels weird to refer to it as "360".

Again mostly it seems most consoles names are pretty awful.

 

[joker454]

Always thought Intellivision was a cool name...

 

[SlimJim]

I agree that PlayStation in itself does not sound too cool, but the numbers at the end do.

 

[MrFox]

GameCube name was great with it's physical design.

Neo Geo was okay.

Amiga, does it count?

Worst name ever is the Bally Astrocade.

 

[Florin]

I liked Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64.

PC Engine and Colecovision never grabbed me as particularly cool names.

Vectrex sounded like a bathroom cleaning product to me.

 

[MrFox]

Vectrex sounded like a bathroom cleaning product to me.

I know what you mean...

 

[Shortbread]

3DFX Voodoo... Quantum3D Obsidian... oh, wait a minute, cool console names, not PC GFX cards.

 

[Pixel]

Xbox Infinity. Would have been clever as users pointed out you could turn the number 8 in Windows 8 90 degrees and it becomes an infinity symbol.

"It can do everything the possibilities are Infinite" - cheesy marketing campaign : The TV/multitasking, kinect, 8gb emmc flash, and 3 gb reserved for apps means infinite potential of this multitasking hardware.

 

[Sonic]

I always thought that Pioneer Laseractive sounded cool. The name exudes electronic mystery that had me curious when I first heard it.

Playstation is one of my favorite console names hands down. When it first launched it sounded goofy and weird, but Sony's marketing department rectified that quickly with some awesome advertising. Enough to make its rival competitor, at the time, sound stupid.

But I still love the name Sega Saturn personally but can acknowledge it didn't resignate with many people at the time.

Virtual Boy was an outright stupid name for an outright stupid system. My neck has never felt as bad as it did after 30 minutes on that thing.

3DO wasn't a bad name. Nor was it good. It was blah to me.

Apple Pippin sounded dumb at the time and still does to this day.

Here in the states people still refer to NES and SNES and Nintendo and Super Nintendo. I do the same thing when speaking aloud. Calling the SNES a "super nintendo" is more natural for me to say. Nintendo sort of continued this tradition by calling the next machine the Nintendo 64 and that is a dumb name much better shortened to N64. I loved the name for Gamecube because it described the machine perfectly. I despised the Wii name at first but got used to it after a while. Wii U is not a good name either.

Xbox was a great name when it first came out and Xbox 360 sounds awesome. But calling the Xbox 360 simply 360 is much nicer and seems to be the more popular way to say the name. Calling the new system Xbox One doesn't make much sense to me and sounds dumb but I guess I'll get used to it. I wouldn't mind if calling it Bone became prevalent, as that's much better than saying Xbox One or simply One.

Some of the best names for hardware happened with the arcade hardware. SEGA, Namco, Konami, Capcom, all had cool names for their arcade hardware. They had some major duds too.

And then there's the Iron Maiden 128. That thing sounded like a beast back in the day and the name was awesome. It was an April Fool's joke in an old Game Players magazine I believe but still what a cool name.

 

[BadTB25]

I like the name X1...sounds mysterious, experimental and cutting edge. Too bad the specs aren't more high end to fit with it.

I always thought Dreamcast had a cool ring to it. Playstation by itself was cool---don't really care for the numbed sequels namewise (2,3,4).

Favorite is probably still Xbox.

 

[AzBat]

1. Sega Genesis 2. Sega Dreamcast 3. ? not sure, Xbox? 3DO? Neo Geo?

 

[Florin]

I know what you mean...

Nowai! Ahahaha

 

[BRiT]

Pong.

Plain, simple, catchy.

 

[SlimJim]

Xbox is probably most powerful
Genesis is really intriguing

Pipin indeed sounds like the worst name. Although the worst name ever probably goes to, wait, actually it's worst names (plural) ever:

this thing was called both the Mega Duck (WTF??) AND Cougar Boy...
Imagine a mom buying that thing for her child, asking a young store clerk: "I am looking for a Cougar Boy "
He would probably have a heart attack

edit: Sega Nomad is a pretty clever and cool name as well.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I always thought Playstation was a cool name. Probably because the name was immediately synonymous with Sony's clever marketing at the time.
Nomad, Genesis and Dreamcast I also liked. Master System sounds kinda questionable in this age of political correctness, though.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I alwasy thought the name "Xbox" sounded bloodly awful. Like a stiff corporate dad trying to be "hip" and give his product a name that would "resonate with the kids". Errgh...

When I later discovered it was supposed to originally be Direct X Box, then it made more sense and sounded only slightly less dumb.

Playstation originally was equally as cringeworthy to me. But like Xbox, it's one of those names that you use so often that you just become a bit immune to how silly it actually sounds.

Atari Jaguar is probably the best console name in history. Just sounds badass.

 

[Grall]

It's successor was going to be called "Panther" even better

Actually, Jaguar was the sucessor; the simpler, less powerful panther was cancelled while still on the drawing board in favor of its bigger brother. In the end, the hardware was overly complicated and bug-ridden though, not to mention being manufactured by Atari, which doomed it into obscurity. That controller, just for starters! Jesus.

For this thread umm, I dont know!

I do.

Nintendo Starcube.

Alas. Never happened. If it had (and if the real product hadn't been friggin purple, with a handle on the back), it would have done better, sales-wise. Impressions do matter. If the name feels lame, it'll taint the product itself.

Xbox is a silly name. It was originally a development codename, and - in a slight panic no doubt - the marketroids and suits at microsoft decided to just go with it rather than try and think up something that would not look as "cool" in comparison after the codename had become entrenched with the gamer public. To me, xbox as a name has always felt like something MS doesn't quite take seriously, not really.

Even today, MS' decision to name the voice assistant in windows phone OS "cortana" after the halo video game character is just the same kind of terrible "people think this is cool" thinking.