Written by Matt Swider  on April 27, 2006

Special: We begin with the name and move on to the system's specs and special features next week, followed by the games the week after that. Check back for more soon.

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The Name
As soon as Nintendo announced that Wii (pronounced "we") would replace Revolution as the name of its upcoming console, many gamers wanted to revolt in favor of the long-running and quite popular codename. In effect, the new three-letter name caused several four-letter words to echo throughout blogs and forum posts. Nintendo, however, has put a positive face on the situation in hoping that Wii grows on us and that we see that it does indeed represent what the system is all about.

Nintendo claims that the name Wii is unique. There's no denying that. However, it goes on to say that the new name represents what the console is all about, from the innovative controller that kind of looks like your TV remote to the way people will use its motion-sensing technology with a single hand. Also, the УiiФ can easily symbolize two Wii controllers, as the flash animation on revolution.nintendo.com demonstrates. Nintendo cleverly incorporated a dual-screen into the logo design of Nintendo DS and may have had the same thought when brainstorming for a new official name here.

So far, this makes sense: The name Wii is unique just like the console is supposed to be and it can easily use the controller as part of its logo. Drawing Nintendo DS in as a defense also brings about another avenue of attack for anti-Wii warriors, though. The DS was always a codename. Why couldn't the codename Revolution also be the official title for the console, too? I mean, while Wii could work for the two reasons I pointed out above, Revolution does all of that and more.

Certainly, Revolution also represents both the hardware and style in which you play games on the upcoming console. While its competitors stick to designs we've seen in past generations, The Big N is basically throwing out the controller as we know it in its contemporary form. That definitely feels like a video game revolution to me.

Plus, the system will serve as a Уvirtual consoleФ in which some classic Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx games can be downloaded and played. Add in the fact that it'll be backwards compatible with GameCube and you've got one loaded system before you even purchase your first Wii game.

Sure, Microsoft has done a stellar job bringing classics to the 360 through its Xbox Live service, but there's no competing with Nintendo's catalog. Having 20 years of classic Nintendo titles all on one system has never been done before and is certainly revolution. Wii just doesn't have that same impact here. Maybe the company was looking at the system's DVD movie and Internet capabilities and thought it represented that УWii're finally doing it.Ф

Wii doesn't work as well for Nintendo fanboys who want a more aggressive sounding name in order to intimidate the competition. In addition to not being a threatening name, Wii sounds odd, plain and simple. If you think about it, names like Xbox and PlayStation weren't very intimidating either when you first heard about them. Still, they seemed to make sense. For example, Xbox is most obviously a box and X is the unknown force of Microsoft entering what was previously a two and a half company console race (if you count Sega as the dying half). Wii doesn't make much sense to people right now, unlike the next-generation competition, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. These names are continuations, and in other words, more powerful than what you've been playing before. Nintendo really can't go with GameCube 2 for obvious reasons, but it might've been better to head down the УGameФ name direction or try to think of a more relevant name than Wii.

The only real advantages to Wii over something like Revolution are that it's unique, short and easy to remember. Even though it lacks the intimidation of its codename, Wii wasn't chosen by Nintendo in order to inspire fear, but to be catchy and broadly appealing. As soon as the shock wears off from this announcement, that could turn out to be true. Wii'll just have to wait and see.