Yeah, I don't understand why Nintendo shied away from it's own name with the Wii. Every other system made by Nintendo says "Nintendo" right on the system and even the controllers. But not with the Wii. It's like they felt they would have had some sort of stigma against them if they called it the "Nintendo Wii."

They're starting to focus on their name again, like with the Nintendo Network and Nintendo Land. But, yeah, we all know "Wii" wasn't our first choice for the name in the first place. I think it did help them achieve what they wanted to do, but "Wii U" is even more confusing that just "Wii." I mean, I think they did a good job of letting people know what a Wii was, but how are they going to do that with the Wii U by adding a letter and a new controller?

I hope they'll bring their name back into the next console title. They never took it out of their handhelds'.

It's the opposite with me. I hear way too often people calling the Wii or DS the "Nintendo" that it makes me want to murder everybody hug a kitten... or something else non-violent...

its because most gamers and parents are(lack of better word) stupid and depend on there eyes to tell them otherwise. once the console is out people will see it's a new console. Plus nintendo didn't help the situation by making the wiiu look like a wii in the first place. system could have been redesigned to help differ itself from wii.

@DudeSean, yeah I get what your saying.

I think they would've definitely benefited by having the name Nintendo Wii.

That way, the "everyone" crowd would be familiar with the company name. So they can then not rely on the "Wii" name for future generations, because we all know they can't hold onto it forever.

Edit : @Nintex, yeah I agree. Nintendo certainly could have individualized the Wii U a bit more. I still think it would've been so easy for the Wii to have only been white, then the Wii U being just black. After all, Nintendo's been putting a lot of attention on the black Wii U ever since its been revealed.

@TysonQ7, thank you for the lulz. For wanting to...hug kittens xD

I think people would be less confused if Nintendo just changed the name to the Super Wii or Wii 2 or even Nintendo 256 or something... But that would be ridiculous.

rather than calling those who don't get it 'stupid', the truth is that branding lies with the corporation. it is their job to make things clear to consumers. they need to start from a point of acknowledgement that the public at large knows little/nothing about their product.

it is their job to get the message across! it certainly doesn't lie with the consumer. it's why corporations pay millions of dollars for ad campaigns, PR groups, etc.

@k8sMum is right. I mean, how else did the Kinect become successful?

It may sound odd, but it is good for Nintendo that this confusion shows up now that the console has not been released yet. That way, they can use these coming months to work on that, so when launch comes they can get as many people as possible to know the difference.

Before Wii U was announced, I always called it the "Super Wii" in my head. Nintendo has a cycle with their consoles. The NES was something new. The SNES was an improved version of it. The n64 was something new. The gamecube was an improved version of it (hardware-wise). The Wii was something new. Now the Wii U is going to be an improved version of that. And we can all look forward to something new in like 5 or 6 years. Something that likely won't be branded with the name "Wii."

blegh, this thread is nauseating. It's like walking into a room full of people with similar ideologies to you and having to listen to a lengthy whine about how stupid/bad the other people are and how they "don't understand". Or like being in late high school and having to listen to that overly cynical friend of yours wax lyrically about how that topic of news for the day is some grand government conspiracy with zero irony and in the tone of a Today Tonight presenter. This is why we can't have nice things.

So chill out, the world won't implode because some people think the Wii U is just a U for the Wii. The people who will actually ask for the thing already know what it is and the people who don't soon will. If they don't who cares, buy the games if you want and get on with your life.

This. They showed a large image of a gamepad resting on/hiding a box. Then there was the tablet controller only displayed on stage. Completely inexcusable.

Elsewhere:

Nintendo's got itself a bit of a brand problem right now. "Nintendo" is not a well reconized brand name among casual gamers, and it's a brand name looked down upon by large portions of hobbyist and hardcore gamers because of being "kiddy" or "casual." Wii was a good brand name until support for it went and died, now it seems more like yesterday's news. Changing brand names completely brings Nintendo more success than not in pretty much every case.

I'm not going to lie though, when they showed the Wii U last year I thought it was just a new controller or something because they only showed the tablet and never the console... it wasn't until later in their presentation that it clicked that it was a new console. Nintendo didn't show it off properly to begin with and rather than showing the console... here's the controller. It just makes people confused.

As for the general public, the only way to find out about video games and consoles is to either to go on to internet websites (like this one) or ask in a video game retailer and even then I wouldn't trust people in video game retail stores, some of them know as much about video games as I do about creating a rocket to the moon.

One conversation I'll never forget in a GAME store is this one:

Customer: *goes to buy a 3DS game"
Cashier: "Do you want a 3DS with that game?"
Customer: "No thanks, I'll be playing it on my DS"
Cashier: "But you need a 3DS to play that game"
Customer: "But they're all the same console anyway, what's the difference between my DS and this DS 3?"
Cashier: "It has 3D..."
Customer: "Is that it?"
Cashier: "Pretty much..."

I wanted to step-in and just tell them then and there that the cashier is an idiot and show them the difference between a 3DS and a DS.

@ the OP again... reason is this

The first time they showed it they took almost three minutes to even hint that it was more than just a new controller for the Wii in a 3.5min trailer. The average consumer will know less about the Wii U than is shown in that trailer when they buy it.

People don't seem to have trouble telling the difference between an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 4s do they so I think the Wii U will do just fine.

At the moment it's only die hard Nintendo fans who really know about the Wii U but as we get closer to Launch it will clearly be marketed as a new console.

Iphones come on a yearly cycle and consumers are used to that.

While nintendo is known for putting out wii add1ons and with less focus on the console it looks like jow the 360 and kinect were. The clnsole is redesigned wii and it comes with the tablet controller.

I just can't wait for someone to buy NSMBU with out the Wii U and tries to put it in the wii, and calls Nintendo up saying "it won't read the disk"

Yes! That would be so awesome

*evil laugh

Can't say I follow mobile phones all that closely, but aren't iPhone apps compatible with everything every other iPhone does and it's just the new and upgraded functionality that iPhones are purchased for?

My point was that even though the new product (iPhone) only has an extra letter on the end of the name people are fully aware that they are 2 different things and one is newer than the other.