Random: Nintendo Finally Confirms The Correct Pronunciation For 'NES'

JohnTron was right all along about “Sness”

I still say 'Enn Eee Ess'.

The highest selling console in June 2018 has earned the right to be correctly addressed. Respect! I always said NEZ, but I'll say NESS from now on.

I don’t care what they say...it will always be the N-E-S to me.

Side note: so is the Super Nintendo called the “Snes”?

Welcome to Giff VS Jiff

My whole life has been a lie.

I still just say the letters.

LOL.
NESS is for Loch Ness.

I said NES, Not Enn Eee Ess.
NES sounds like Nash to me.
SNES sounds like Smash to me.

I'm good with Nez or Ness. Who can be bothered saying Enn Eee Ess?

I’ve always said «ness» and «ess ness». I’m funny like that.

The shepherd has spoken

I call the NES the N-E-S or ‘original Nintendo’ but I call the SNES the ‘Super Nintendo’ never S-N-E-S. Too many letters.

@Pikachupwnage

Gesundheit!

Have always said nez and snez and always will

I’ve always just pronounced the letters.

Does this make the N64 the “Nn-six-four?”

Aye but what do you call the follow up?! SNES, S N E S, Super NES, Super N E S, Super Nintendo, or Super Nintendo Entertainment System?!

@justin233 yeah, I’ve always said “any ess” and “super”
Sega, 64, Cube. Everyone knew what I was saying.

@Supadav03 for me and my brother is was always S-NES (S-Ness) or Super Ness. Sometimes it was N-E-S or S-N-E-S. Never with the Z. Is that a British thing?

Said the same thing for this as for the giff/jiff argument. I base it on how the letters are used in the full name. For Gif it was giff and for this it is Ness/sness.

I say N-E-S and will continue to do so. It's an acronym for Nintendo Entertainment System.

Of course, back in my day we just said 'Nintendo'.

That makes no sense. It's called the Nintendo Entertainment System or N.E.S. It's not a character from Earthbound.

If it’s pronounced that way, why when Nintendo talks about the Classic in Podcasts and at press conferences do they say “Enn Eee Ess”?

N-E-S and 'Snez' for me.

I used to pronounce it by its initials, "N.E.S." or I'd just call it, "My Nintendo". And like most people in the UK, I did pronounce the SNES, "Snezz".

@Dualmask Really depends on who I'm talking to. If it's a gamer friends, I say Ness or N.E.S. But if it's people who are less gaming literate, I specify with "Original Nintendo" because most don't know what I'm talking about when N.E.S or S.N.E.S are said. Lol

Nescafe is a Nintendo coffee shop.

ACTUALLY, the Japanese is saying "Nessu", so, you know, not technically confirmation.

En Ee Ess 4 Life.

This will have repercussions in Alex's videos.

I've been pronouncing them as N-E-S and S-N-E-S my whole life and I ain't stopping now. I also refer to GameFAQS as Game-F-A-Qs. I guess I just have an aversion to pronouncing acronyms as words?

Meanwhile, Indonesian peoples are still called any Nintendo machines with just "NINTENDO", (Almost) Never mentioned the specific names.

In France, everybody say NESS and not EN EE ES.
Fun fact with the Game Gear, French people call it Game GEER ! LOL

By the way, you don't pronounce SNK "Snick" do you? Or are those vowels just irresistible for word-building? Please.

@adh56 it was always the Super Nintendo or S-N-E-S for short. Not sure what’s up with this pronouncing abbreviations as if they were words thing...

@BoilerBroJoe Weird that they'd have a word for the NES when they had the Famicom instead.

N-E-S spells ネス

Latin America: NES, as a complete word.

Well my grandma calls it a “Nytendo”

@Supadav03 well pronouncing the abbreviation isn’t totally odd in the states with things like NASA

Well, at least they aren't saying it's supposed to be "Nezz."

I will never be able to call it a 'ness'. It's anyways an "N" "E" "S" to me.

But in Animal Crossing, interacting with the Super Tortimer item produces this message:

"Heh heh hehhh hoorf! April Fool! Super Tortimer isn't an NES game!"

Even though I've always said 'Nez', the presence of 'an' makes me believe that it was intended to be pronounced 'En Ee Ess'. To be honest, I think that throughout the last 30+ years of its release and across all the countries it was released in, official Nintendo media must have said it in every form possible at least once.

We are the Knights who say Neeeeeeeeee...ss

I’ve always called it Ness and Sness

I think it's silly, but I expected it ever since Iwata pronounced it that way in a direct.

Just going to call it Famicom regardless of region now.

Well, @AlexOlney, since it's not an abbreviation, no. N.E.S., S.N.E.S. and even N.64 are abbreviations. But as per your advice, I'll start pronouncing the U.K. as "Uck".

Never heard anyone in real life say nez. So there has never been a debate to me. It's always been Ness or en e es. Still is that way. As one is saying it as a word, and another is saying the letters of the acronym. This new found confirmation doesn't take away saying the letters of an acronym.

So if the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) is pronounce as the "ness" then should I just called the PS1 the "possess" you know cause the PS1 is also known as the PlayStation Computer Entertainment System a.k.a the PSCES?

I thought of them as initialisms rather than acronyms, where you pronounce each letter instead of reading it as a word.

I think, generally, what separates initialisms and acronyms is whether or not you CAN read it as a word. “FBI,” for example, is read as “eff bee eye” because you can’t pronounce it as a word that doesn’t sound ridiculous. “FAQ,” on the other hand: you can get away with pronouncing it as “fack,” but there are only three letters so you can kinda go either way with it. RADAR or UNICEF? We say them as acronyms, reading it as a word because it’s way easier.

NES can kinda go either way; I don’t imagine everyone working at Nintendo is consistent with one another because there’s never been a prospect of an official pronunciation outside of a minor Easter egg in one game. But if you read it as an acronym, I would say that few people will comprehend what you’re talking about if you say, “Nezz.”

Of course, the community I’ve been around my whole life consisted of largely non-gamers, so I always just call them the “Original Nintendo” and “Super Nintendo.”

Eh. In a children's game, of course Nintendo has to add furigana to an English game system acronym. But nothing about this seems like a definitive "and that's how it's officially pronounced." Plus, being an English name for a system not released in Japan, I wouldn't think "hey kiddies here's how you can read this in Japanese" has anything to do with the official English pronunciation. Plus, it'd be pretty hard to fit エン・イイ・エス above NES.

I call it Nintendo

@AlexOlney The Doubleyoo-ai-ai Yoo was criminally underrated

Now they just have to tell us how you pronounce "SNES"

When spoken, I've almost always said "The original Nintendo", or back in the Super Nintendo days, I'd say "Regular Nintendo". I rarely ever speak it out loud, but the times I have, I usually said N-E-S cause it didn't make sense to me to pronounce the abbreviation like it looks. Same with S-N-E-S, or Super N-E-S. To me, that'd be like saying the abbreviated form of "Mr." and "Mrs." like "Mer" and "Mers" respectively, which is incorrect English but hey, different cultures, different countries, different societies, different languages, different rule sets, so I'd be a fool to debate that. So for trivia, I will forever remember that it's officially Ness and Sness (Buuut I'll still say N-E-S and S-N-E-S )

The NES and SNES were simply known as Nintendo to me back when I was young. As I was always playing on my Nintendo.

Memories. Nice to know though.

American air force brat:
En Ee Es.
Super Nintendo.
Nintendo 64.
Sega Genisis.

And everybody says GameFacks, not Game eff-ay-cues.

Also, S.H.I.E.L.D. - who says Shield and who says the individual letters?

Nonsense, it's pronounced Famicom!
And it's not Genesis either, it's Megadrive!

Well, when it came out in the 80s, we called it a Nintendo. So, once the Super Nintendo came out, and we were still calling the first one a Nintendo, there was some confusion so we eventually started calling it an N E S because the box says Nintendo Entertainment System. I'm guessing "Ness" is a joke or a millennial POV.

I just call it “old Nintendo” but I would have assumed The letters would have been spelled out because it’s called the Nintendo Entertainment System

And you still get people pronouncing it 'Ess Enn Eee Ess' instead of 'Sness'

@DockEllisD I'm Canadian and I've been saying N-E-S or S-N-E-S as letters my whole life.

Thank you Nintendo for the pronunciation.

As for those comparing it to GIF or JIF; there are those who pronounce it correctly - with the hard 'G', and those who are wrong. It is GRAPHIC interchange format, not JRAPHIC interchange format. It's really an industry acronym, didn't start as part of pop culture. In the case of the NES, I think the argument could be made that this pronunciation makes the most sense; system is a soft 's'.

But I think the difference between the two arguments is that the NES is a part of pop culture and we've received no guidance all of these years as to pronunciation. We've had real ownership of the system and its name as fans and gamers.

At the end of the day, it bugs me (as a graphic designer and multimedia artist) when people insist on mispronouncing a tool that I use, whereas I don't care what people call the NES because it comes from a place of love, nostalgia and personal experience.

I'd keep doing it even if it was wrong.

Same way I still spell his name Crono even if the H is only left out because of the five character constraint for the names.

That's how I roll.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare

Which ever way you say it, I know what you're talking about...GAMING!

Nez and Snez here. When O forst heard someone pronounce it N.e.s (American youtube) I was like "but there's no stops in between".

Either way, anything is good. Plus don't forget accents! I'm always being told I shouldn't be saying GraRs or braRs. Psh.

I have always called ness and snes. I was in game stop in Atlanta a few years back and asked if they had any snes games and my cousin and the matey boy behind the counter looked at me as if I had a taken a dump on the floor. Most people in the UK call it ness and snes or know what you are talking about when you say it.

They always said the letters in the original commercials for it. People in real life I've usually heard say nez, although I've never understood where that z came from.

Ha! Take that Bobby Ryan from the second grade!

@AlexOlney said "Does that make the Wii the 'doubleyoo-ai-ai'?"

LMAO ! God ! Can't stop laughting because I have your voice litterally saying that in my head ! I even can visualise you saying it with your usual mimics... Gosh, my belly hurt !

@Kiyata Do you mean Nester? Ness was from EarthBound.

Always called it NES/NESS, so this final outcome is no biggie for me.

On a side note: in WHAT part of the universe, is a 'z' sound harsher and an 's' sound softer? My head hurts...

@Bass_X0 We probably also pronounce it as Shield, because the movies and the TV series taught us to do it like that. People pronouncing it with separate letters are just anti-society/anti-world/anti-facts...

@Tsusasi I hear you. Completely agreed. People mispronouncing things is like nails on a chalk board to me.

Ha! I always pronounced it NEZ. Never could understand why people pronounced each letter. It's such a mouthful. I guess we were both wrong!

This for me is the equivalent of finding out how to pronounce Ryu!

I'm still saying the letters

They need to have a site wide vote on how to say it now

Of course is the Ness, then came the SNess and now we have the sWitch!

Fake News!

I'll probably still just say "The N-E-S", or Famicom.

@Pikachupwnage Couldn't care less what he thinks.

How do you pronounce FFS?

I really just want to know how to pronounce NN3DSXL.

Been wrong my whole 33 years of living. Lol

@NESlover85 any.ass (sorry)?

Thou, it was pretty obvious, since they've told how to pronounce SNES.

Until I hear Charles Martinet saying it, it’s staying as “nez” and “snez”.

My grandma always called it "the antenna"

Yeah Nintendo are wrong, it'll always be either the letters or NES, for a start if they thought different why is Ness in Earthbound spelled like that if the second s isn't needed? Everyone pronounced it as Nez because that's how it is spelled

Ness
Snes
Piss
Piss 2
Hahahaha

I alternate between N. E. S. and Ness
I alternate between S. N. E. S. and Super Nintendo
I call it the "enn" 64
I alternate between 'Cube and G. C. N.
Obviously, I call it the Wii
I call the WiiU just U (you)
Nintendo Switch is just Switch or even just Nintendo.

I have a =NEW= 2DS XL. I just call it a D. S.

Well My Switch just broke... Never did anything to it and it just suddenly gave up and won't go past the logo screen - so I guess it's time for me to play some games on my NES classic until I can get my Switch fixed lol.

@tehKurios lol that name is actually incredibly adorable.

I work for a Japanese company, and know better than to trust them as English language authorities.

My peers and I always called it the "N.E.S." or simply the "Nintendo."
Then along came the "Super N.E.S." aka "Super Nintendo." I've never really heard them referred to otherwise.

I had never imagined my self saying "NES" as if it were one word (the first time in which I could remember hearing another voice being used to pronounce it as if it were such a such was while watching a certain TV program named "Extended Play" for a certain TV programming service named TechTV).

I'm fine with that. I generally say NES and SNES as Nez and Snes, but whatever.

Will always be N. E. S. to me.

Big whoop.

'Nez' never really worked for me, so I would have just called it 'the Nintendo' and later 'the original Nintendo.'
These days, having watched and read stuff on the internet for years it's 'en-e-ess' all the way.

As for the Super Nintendo, 'snez' just made sense in the UK of the early 90's for some reason. I'm reaching here, but I feel like maybe the Rave scene at the time might have influenced the way young people would make things sound cooler (slang) and would have filtered down to the playgrounds where you'd use anything to convince your friends that your Super Mario World was as cool as their Sonic. If you couldn't go with your older sibling to dance in a random field until either the sun comes up or the police shut it down, the next best thing would be having some mates round to play Mario Kart on the Snez while listening to that Ebeneezer Goode song you taped off the radio, right.

Funny I remember commercials calling it the Nintendo Entertainment System, or N-E-S, whenever there was a new game for it. We always called it the Nintendo, or N-E-S. I don't really care who calls it what.

Nope. I won't accept this. Nintendo is wrong. It's three letters: N - E - S.

It's rightful name will always simply be "a Nintendo"....there's only one true Nintendo, and it has a toaster slot.

@Bass_X0 But nobody says check the fakk, they say check the F.A.Q.

Though I've often been told to shut the fakk up, so maybe I've been misunderstanding?

@AlexOlney

Don't be ridiculous. Its called the Nwee.

I've always called the SNES, Super Nintendo or S-N-E-S.

Sorry guys. Its N-E-S

I've always called it Ness and Sness, but I really don't see how either pronunciation is really wrong, just more about preference.

Except, if you're enunciating the acronym, pronouncing it as N-E-S would still be correct. Just because you can say a word to represent an acronym (NES vs "Ness") doesn't mean you have to (USA vs... erm... "Ew-suh"...?)

Yeah, it's an acronym, folks. It's nice that when you read it out (incorrectly) as a word it sounds okay, but it's still an acronym, and the only "proper" way to read it aloud should be to pronounce the letters individually.

I always called it N-E-S, finally found an Nes classic at my local walmart!😁🙌👏

In the Nintendo Minute videos (which are official Nintendo videos on their channel) they always say the letters such as N E S or S N E S (not counting when they say Nintendo Entertainment System or Super N E S). It's the way I always said it and the way I've most heard it.

Proof of Nintendo Minute people pronouncing the letters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvlFI9Nry3Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixQKBPMlEe0
https://youtu.be/b0DonQFwBzo?t=23

Also in the Nintendo Presentation in 2017 they said Super N E S (or the translator did anyway)
https://youtu.be/IWkIpi5yMHQ?t=2344

I could do more digging but with all the evidence I have right now I'm still calling it the N E S just like most acronyms. USA, UK, FDA, FAQ, DVD, and even ones Nintendo uses like DS, 3DS, and XL. Why would some of Nintendo's acronyms pronounced as a word but some aren't?

I'll keep calling it 'Nintendo'.
When they ask which one, I say '8-bit.'

Both "Ness" and "N-E-S" are fine with me but "Nez" is clearly wrong.

I mean, it's an acronym, so you can say it however you want. That said, I never once heard anyone use the terms "Ness" or "Sness" when these systems were actually current. It wasn't until maybe five years ago that I first encountered it. And from my experience, it seems like those pronunciations are mostly only used outside of North America.

And actually, most people just called the NES the "Nintendo" when the system was current, and the SNES was likewise called the "Super Nintendo." I rarely, if ever, encountered people who used the acronyms for these systems until well after the systems' lifespans had concluded. It's similar to the way people now use the term "VHS" when referring to what we just called "tapes" or "videos" or "video tapes" back when the things were actually in use.

Also worth noting- since the Japanese version of NES was named Famicom and not NES, and since English letters and speech are generally foreign to Japanese, their reading of the name takes a backseat to what was actually being used in the territories where the name "NES" was relevant. Just my take on it, though.

I never imagined there were barbarians who pronounced it with a z sound. Why on earth?

In British English at least previous words such as Loch Ness has established that the soft 's' sound requires the double s following the ne. It would be interesting to see if there is a difference in American English with more people using the soft 's' for the NES. Still every one I know goes for either hard 's' NES (not as hard as the 'z' sound others have been commenting on here) or as separate letters.

I just prounounced each letter, tbh. But whatever...

Feh, I'll still go on saying it as the letters, not this "Ness" and "Sness" nonsense. It's way simpler and easier to say in a conversation to keep the flow going quickly!😝

Pretty sure Iwata clearly pronounced it "ENN EEE ESS" when discussing the NES Remix games in past Nintendo Directs. I STAND WITH IWATA-SAN

I always thought it was just Americans that said N E S

Sorry folks, but I always say the letters in acronyms. I learned my lesson many years ago with "LOL". (Yes, I used to say it and read it as "lawl")

Eat it NEZ & SNEZ'rs! For the Record I call it either Ness or NES spelled out.

Let’s get a few things straight:

NES is pronounced nezz.
The correct name for “Snickers” is Marathon.
“Cif” is still Jif
“Starburst” are still Opal Fruits

Everyone in the 80s called it the N-E-S as it’s an abbreviation for it’s full name... no different than NBA, MLB or NHL. So Ness makes no sense as it’s not a name, but an abbreviation. This is revisionist nonsense.

Nintendo Entertaiment System is the name, NES is the abbreviation. Why is this even up for discussion? I’m highly surprised an abbreviation is now considered a name and sounded out.

N-E-S forever

@Agent721
No; in my house we said Ness, because it was pronounceable enough to sound like a term (or character's name). Some people tend to, other's don't. NES landed on being easy enough to pronounce but short enough to spell that neither felt wrong.

On that note, the spelling of such things doesn't feel any less like a name. Which brings your 'surprise' into question. EA, HP, IBM, UPS. The real names still exist, but the abbreviations are so common they carry as recognizable names. AND there is (and has been) discussion because there's always been weight to an official way. My family has always said 'ups' but since that's not what UPS uses, I'm pretty sure we're the only ones.

Is the museum section only in the Japanese version?! I honestly would buy Wario Ware for 3DS just so can unlock museum items like this. That’s one thing I liked a lot about Chibi-Robo; collecting the real life items and reading about them

"ness" may or may not be correct (as argued in it comments above), but whether you agree that it is correct or not, that says nothing about referring to the system as N.E.S. That will always be correct as it is not a pronunciation at all but rather simply saying the letters of the acronym for Nintendo Entertainment System.

As for the gif debate, as mentioned above, I know a creator of the format came forward years later and stated it was pronounce "jiff", but he was years too late. It had been pronounced either way for years and as such his statement made no difference (besides, how do we even know he didn't decide that was the pronunciation just before he made the statement as opposed to when the format was created?). Similarly, one could argue this NES thing makes no difference either.

Now, back to lurk mode.

So I guess for the "Switch", it'd be "Sweehss"

@Agent721 Do you say en ay es ay for NASA?

Revisionist bullpoo. Anyone who was alive during the 80s and saw the original commercials knows its N-E-S. This wasn't even debated back then.

Nintendo 8 bit

Makes sense, because I think Ness from Earthbound was referencing that.

Noooooooooooo! I lost!

And so began WW3.

I still just spell it out. N E S.

It depends what part of the world you come from and your accent, I think. The name 'Les' is pronounced less if you are American but lez if you are British. I'll keep saying Nez, thanks.

"Nintondo Neusszz"

@NESlover85 I had my original Enn Eee Ess back when I was in 8th grade, it will always be Enn Eee Ess to me.

'Ness', 'N-E-S'. I've used both over the years. I'm pretty sure everyone knew what I was talking about. No one ever said I was wrong.

@Agent721 exactly! Back in the day I had the NES advantage joystick and NES max game pad. My friends and everyone I knew said N E S or just plain ole Nintendo. Back then we really didn’t have to differentiate until the Super Nintendo came out in 91.

Nez and Snez here. I'd never heard it said otherwise (in my little corner of the world) before the internet.
This reminds me of watching the Pokemon anime and finding out i was pronouncing most of the names really, really wrong.

If you started gaming in the 70's it's an Atari. If you started in the 80's, it's a Nintendo. The 90's it was a Playstation. These days it could be an Xbox, Playstation or Switch.

what does this mean for SNES then? Do they pronounce it ''Snez'' or ''Super Ness"?

It is largely a regional thing. people in the UK have alwasy said Ness and Sness whereas people from the US have more said Ess Enn Eee Ess.

@NESlover85
I have never heard anyone say it the other ways.

So relieved that I've been using the correct pronunciation for Ness.

Nez and Snez here. Seems like a British pronunciation. Basically if acronyms make some sort of a word then people are lazy/ingenious and will say that instead. FIFA, UEFA, NASA etc. It makes zero different anyway as some people have already mentioned, the thing is called the Nintendo Entertainment System. Full Stop (pronounced .).

Technically speaking if you're going off the katakana in that screen you should be calling it a "NESU".

@607jf I don't care if the creator says it's "jiff", I don't think English works that way. It sounds as wrong as jiggawatt.

Ness and Sness is the Swedish way to say it. I'm pleased.

In Australia everyone always calls them Ness and Sness. I thought everyone did except Alex on this site lol

Really all it says is "this is the foreign version. It's called [ness]". But it doesn't say WHO calls it that, nor does it say that that's the only thing it's called. So by this alone, technically no one is wrong. Though I've never heard "Nez" before, and I hate it and declare it to be wrong.

Not even Nintendo themself can get me to stop saying “Enn Eee Ess”

Malarkey! I refuse to call it Ness. It's a freaking acronym: N - E - S.

@JasmineDragon Probably just 3DS. Reminds me of my aunt whose kid had an iPad Mini and she'd always be like "Where is your iPad Mini?" instead of just saying iPad or whatever.

That's probably just in Japan. The commercials called it "N. E. S."

It's always been N-E-S and S-N-E-S for me, but I can see why some would say Ness and Sness. At least in the US, we're very inconsistent in our pronunciation of acronyms. Everyone says Nassa for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (not N-A-S-A), but then we say E-P-A for the Environmental Protection Agency (not "epah"). Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

N E W S

It’s acronyms so:
N-E-S
S-N-E-S or Super N-E-S
N-64
GameCube never shortened it to cube
Wii
Wii-U
Switch

Simple really 😛

I can't believe how many comments this article has 😂

also spelled out N-E-S for sure.

I call it "very old console with games I don´t wanna play anymore" from now on.

I always pronounced it N-E-Ez.

@FredBiletnikoff

Go look at old 1980s Nintendo US TV advertising and even they call it the N-E-S. The Power Glove ad itself says only for your N-E-S.

Whoever wrote this up on Wario Ware is rewriting history and out of touch with what it was called in the US. Maybe now in Japan they think it’s Nesss, but it never was when the system was originally released. No one in the US called it anything but the N-E-S growing up, as Nintendo’s own add confirmed it.