I was talking to a co-writer of this site today, and realised that all of the names that consoles have sound rubbish. They seem less rubbish over time as they’re accepted into everyone’s vocabulary – but when you think about it, they all suck.
The latest crop of 7th generation consoles have some pretty stupid names – but also, historically they don’t have names that make you want to play them. It’s like an unspoken rule that if you’re going to release a console, give it a stupid name.
Playstation
Playstation? What does that mean? A station for play? What a petrol station? I just don’t get it. So I’ve gone onto dictionary.com to try and make sense of it all:
- Play – the third explanation reads, “exercise or activity for amusement or recreation.” Makes sense.
- Station – the closest I could get was, “a place equipped for some particular kind of work, service, research, or the like: gasoline station; geophysical station.”
So a place equipped for the service of games? Obscure at best. In fact, it reads like a bad Japanese translation.. No wait!
Wii
So it’s a place equipped for playing. No – I don’t understand either. So onto another – Wii – not even made from real words. Apparently it sounds like “We”, which is due to its “anybody can pick it up and play” gaming concept. Also they think the idea of the two is next to each other represent two people standing together, or the wiimote (don’t get me started on that one) and the nunchuk.
The reality is that it sounds like the word we in the UK use to describe the act of urinating. The word also sounds like, in Scotland, something that’s small. So something small that urinates.. Hmm..
Xbox
X-Factor, Generation X, the X Games, EXTREME!! It’s an EXTREME BOX! Totally awesome dude. Not.
And the rest of them:
- Magnavox Odyssey – Sounds like a dodgy space film. Probably starring William Shatner after he got fat.
- Pong – Great game system – bats and balls, 2 player – awesome. The name smells a bit though.
- Atari 2600 – Blocky graphics, and a name that sounds more like a washing machine – inventive.
- NES – Nintendo Entertainment System. What? I think a 60 year old business man thought that up.
- Sega Master System – Master of what? And where are the subsidiary systems Sega? Huh?
- Sega Mega Drive – The buzz word of the 80s! Mega=Cool. But Drive? What drive? It’s cartridges!? PAH!
- SNK’s Neo Geo – So it’s new – that’s the Neo bit. Geo? Isn’t that to do with rocks or something? New Brick?
- TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem – Uncomfortable missing vowel! It’s all too MUCH!!
- SNES – Super Nintendo Entertainment System. See above.
- Atari Jaguar – Now we’re getting somewhere! Not perfect, but definitely in a different league to the others.
- Sega Saturn – Again, not a bad name choice I think – Maybe they’re starting to wise up?
- Nintendo 64 – A bit workman like, and could be a vacuum cleaner, but cashing in on the 64-bit buzzword
- Sega Dreamcast – OK – ignore what I said above. Dream – Cast? Like playing/showing your dreams? Urgh.
- Nintendo Gamecube – I must admit I think this is the best. The only name I really like.
So there you have it – A huge pile of stupid names for consoles, but a few shine through as being quite cool. I remember the Atari Jaguar because my brother had one. He didn’t have many games for it, but then there weren’t many games for it anyway. I’m sure he quickly sold it on to somebody else – but it sounded so cool, even before you saw the machine, you wanted to see it.
Then there’s the Sega Saturn. I remember very little about the console, but I remember that I always wanted to see one, to play the games on it – and I can only put that down to its cool name. Were the games actually that good?
Finally the Gamecube, my personal favourite. Minimalist in name, and minimalist in nature. It was an interesting shape for a console – a cube. And not because cubes are interesting, but because they’re not, and everything else wasn’t. A Cube. I think what I’m saying is I liked the name. And the games were cool too!