RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
On one hand, I do appreciate the simplicity and comfort in the ordinal naming scheme of the Playstation, and I admire the impact that it had on MS as a competitor (not wanting to produce an Xbox2 to compete with a Playstation 3 and therefore going with "360" instead). I also think that "Playstation" itself, is such a great name above and beyond the brand that they have created, that they need to find a way to carry that forward.
However, like all sequels, the ordinal naming scheme at some point becomes counter-productive. Who wants to watch Spiderman 6? Nobody. Because it implies "more of the same", which is why after a number of sequels, Hollywood gives us reboots even when they could have maintained the main actors and just given us another in the same series.
When I was growing up it was always just "let's play Atari". It didn't matter if it referred to the 2600 or the 5200, same with Nintendo as it went from NES to SNES, then it was "let's play Playstation" or "let's play Xbox".
I'm pretty sure everybody agrees that Nintendo Revolution was a far superior name to the ridiculous Nintendo Wii, but it sure didn't ultimately impact sales, did it?
The Xbox One is pretty much absurd, especially considering their original vision for the console. I can't believe they couldn't have come up with a better name. They should have called it XCloud or something that invoked the vision for the console. Of course, since they've backtracked on the entire vision, if they had actually named it that, they'd be in quite a pickle.
WiiU is such a horrible name and so confusing that many staunch Nintendo-ites have blamed the name of the console on its poor performance. Which again, is flawed considering that Wii was a horrible name and had no impact on sales.
We also have Ouya, which most people don't even know how to pronounce and says nothing about the actual console itself. They'd have been better off doing some rift of Droid or Android, but that might have required royalties from LucasArts or something.
I liked the ideas of Nintendo Revolution as well as Xbox Infinity - with its tie-in to a sideways Windows 8. I liked the Dreamcast name, although that sounds more like a movie studio that makes cartoons than a gaming console.
However, like all sequels, the ordinal naming scheme at some point becomes counter-productive. Who wants to watch Spiderman 6? Nobody. Because it implies "more of the same", which is why after a number of sequels, Hollywood gives us reboots even when they could have maintained the main actors and just given us another in the same series.
When I was growing up it was always just "let's play Atari". It didn't matter if it referred to the 2600 or the 5200, same with Nintendo as it went from NES to SNES, then it was "let's play Playstation" or "let's play Xbox".
I'm pretty sure everybody agrees that Nintendo Revolution was a far superior name to the ridiculous Nintendo Wii, but it sure didn't ultimately impact sales, did it?
The Xbox One is pretty much absurd, especially considering their original vision for the console. I can't believe they couldn't have come up with a better name. They should have called it XCloud or something that invoked the vision for the console. Of course, since they've backtracked on the entire vision, if they had actually named it that, they'd be in quite a pickle.
WiiU is such a horrible name and so confusing that many staunch Nintendo-ites have blamed the name of the console on its poor performance. Which again, is flawed considering that Wii was a horrible name and had no impact on sales.
We also have Ouya, which most people don't even know how to pronounce and says nothing about the actual console itself. They'd have been better off doing some rift of Droid or Android, but that might have required royalties from LucasArts or something.
I liked the ideas of Nintendo Revolution as well as Xbox Infinity - with its tie-in to a sideways Windows 8. I liked the Dreamcast name, although that sounds more like a movie studio that makes cartoons than a gaming console.
Wii is elegant?!?
