Nintendo, just today, announced the Revolution's real name.  The Wii.  When I first saw that, I asked myself what they were thinking.  The Wii?  How is that pronounced?  "Wee"?  Will I be holding a Wii-Wand then?  Am I going to be Wii'ing infront of the TV (or at my computer if rumored VGA/DVI support comes true)?  It sounds like another name for urine or penis for crying out loud!  What were they thinking??

But then I thought about it.

And saw the video.

Sure, the "philosophy" behind the name is very sensationalist, seeming almost as if it's trying to sell the name a bit too much (one person commented asking if they got a hold of Sony's marketing department), but I can see what they're trying to do.  It's kind of an odd name that grabs one's attention and won't let go.  Similar to the iPod.  What kind of name is "iPod"?  The name is also pronounced exactly like the English word "we;" as in, us, my friends and I, my family.  Coincidence?  Not at all.  The DS is a very social system.  People love to play it with other people.  At the LAN Party on Thursday, Alyssa brought her DS with Tetris.  Tetris has a multiplayer mode that only requires one game card that allows up to either eight or ten people to play.  I played quite a few three person games, and one or two five person games.  I think it's safe to say that we played for almost two hours on and off.  It was easy to set up, and most importantly, it was fun.

Nintendo's goal with the Revolution, excuse me, the Wii and the DS has been to get non-gamers interested in gaming while also providing for the traditional gamer.  I'm not quite sure on their stance regarding the hardcore gamer, but I think they're moving in the right direction with Metroid Prime: Hunters on the DS and many gamers that I've talked to that would consider themselves "hardcore" have a major interest in the Wii.  Well, they had an interest in the Revolution; hopefully a name change won't chage their minds.  Most non-gamers may not see the point in playing Final Fantasy VII.  It's long and can be quite boring at times.  Most people (emphasis on most) like to do things with other people.  Games that break the stereotypical "go here, jump on these platforms, press this button, shoot these zombies, steal this car, do this trick on your skateboard" seem to work quite well with non-gamers.  I've seen over and over people that wouldn't even play Super Mario World pick up a PS2 controller and roll around in Katamari Damacy, or dance a bit in DDR, or even wail on the ol' axe in Guitar Hero.  These games are easy to pick up, and that's what Nintendo is trying to do with the Wii.  Ask yourself, however, how many times you've seen a non-gamer jump on a DDR mat or grab a Guitar Hero controller on their own.  Very few (zero for me).  Now, how many times have you seen them try the game when one of their friends agrees to try as well.  I've seen a large amount of co-workers try Guitar Hero because their friend would be right by their side, doing just as bad as they.  Quite a few of my close friends started playing because either one of my other friends or I have convinced another Guitar Hero neophyte into playing.  The first time I tried Guitar Hero was at a work party where a few of my friends had just seen the game for the first time and wanted to try it out.  People are very social creatures, and the Wii will play right into that.  In traditional Nintendo style, the system is bound to populated with a multitude of multiplayer games.  People are also very lazy.  Did you know that one needs only to buy a single wand from his or her favorite store (or bring one from home) and they are able to play on a friend's Wii right away?  There's no need to plug anything into the Wii in order to use another wand.  Just turn on the remote in the vicinity of the Wii in question and you're in the game in no time!  How easy is that?

Now, I have to admit, I think a lot, so when I think about something I usually cover a lot of ground in very little time.  All of this seriously passed through my head within the first instant I saw the article on Eurogamer.  Within a few minutes, I warmed up to the name.  Sure, I still think Revolution has a better ring to it than Wii, but Wii has strength (or should that be have?).

If everyone would take it seriously.  This post was not meant to be about the name change or Nintendo's philosophy on gaming, but about the response to the name change.  Information of the new name has traveled quickly.  Maybe that was Nintendo's goal, maybe not.  Either way, however, I'm kind of disappointed in the overall response.  Eurogamer is a European site, obviously, with a lot of British visitors.  The British use the term "wee" to refer to one's penis or urine.  One Brit commented that the name was being taken a little better over in the States because he didn't see as many penis jokes.  I submit a one 88NoSoup4U88's comment from Slashdot:

Off record: If the Wii's can connect to eachother, would it be a 'wiiwii' ? And would I be in trouble if I told people I'm off playing with my friends and our WiiWii's ?

And JonTurner over here thinks he's hilarious:

Something tells me this is going to get ugly. Just off the top of my head:

1) Shopper: "Hi. I see these are on sale. I would like to take a Wii."
2) Son, you've been playing with your Wii all day on that tiny monitor -- give it a rest or you'll go blind.
3) Headline: Wii usage linked to possible repetitive stress injury?

BTW, Is a cluster of these called a Wii-Wii?

Sure, if you check out the Eurogamer comments and the Slashdot comments you can find a few that try to defend the name (more so on Slashdot than Eurogamers), or at least the logic behind it, but the majority of comments are making fun of the name.  Now, I have no problem with making fun of things, especially something that just begs to be made fun of, but some people are just taking it too far.  But is Nintendo asking for it with a name like this?  As I said, news of the name change has spread quickly.  The name is out there, everyone knows what it is.  Has Nintendo just shot themselves in the foot?  Or is it true that no publicity is bad publicity?

By clicking the link below, you will be treated to a few comments I found on the Eurogamer article.  They were originally gonna be tied into the post in some way, but that just didn't work out.  Instead of scrapping them, I decided to let y'all in on the mass stupidity and close-mindedness of the online gaming community.  Most of these are horrible.  These are the kinds of gamers that claim to be "hardcore" but in reality are just sheep that follow the trends.  So what if it's called the Wii?  Would you really sell ALL your Nintendo stock, Krun?  And Pho-Zoon, it's appropriate how you put quotes around the world 'loyal.'  If a simple name change like this is making you dump Nintendo, you must not have been that loyal, eh?  Yiannis here is apparently extremely skilled at predicting the market.  Nintendo's name change will really cause more Xbox360s to be sold next week?  I better grab one while I can!  And Smelly...  good ol' Smelly..  He has been trolling the comments on Eurogamers since the news broke.  Nothing positive to say.  Just general overreacting.  Like most everyone else.

(Click for more)

I tried to grab a few (truely) funny ones as well, but the majority of them were just bad...  There were a few comments, can't find them now, about people who had warmed up to the name.  One of them said something to the effect of "I now associate the name 'Wii' more with Nintendo after just a few hours than I do 'Gamecube' after four years." Another said that the name will be unforgettable.  And it will be.  It's no Playstation 3 or Xbox360.  It's the Wii.  It's not just a sequal to a previous console (as the other two seem to be), it's brand new.  People will know what you mean when you talk about the Wii.

E3 is only a few weeks away.  Nintendo has yet to reveal the "most secret" aspect about the Wii.  If the controller, virtual console system, and name change were received as such, I'm both excited and worried to see how people will react to this last secret.

Off-topic: When I first saw the name, another thought ran through my head: It's missing an 'f'.."

It's perfect, really: With the Wii you may not connect to NintendoWifi, but rather Wiifi.

Or maybe it's just me.

So I bought Resident Evil 4 last week.  So far, I love it.  The game looks amazing, and it's quite fun.  The only real problem with it is that it's doesn't really have the same scary atmosphere as the previous Resident Evils that I have played (which would be Resident Evil 1, bits of Resident Evil 0, and quite a bit of Resident Evil 2).  Sure, some things are scary.  But.. it's just not the same.  There was only one part where I was truly [i]scared[/i]: I was running around as Ashley, trying to get some piece to a puzzle when I encountered a hallway that led to a room.  The hallway had suits of armor in each corner (it twisted and turned a few times), and the room at the end had quite a few suits of armor.  Well, you grab the item and the armors come to life.  The thing about Ashley is that, because she was separated from Leon, she had no healing items.  Or weapons.  Of anysort.  So here I am, walking through this hallway when I see the suits of armor.  [i]Shit, these suits are going to come alive, in true RE fashion.  I have... nothing! shit shit shit!  What am I gonna do?[/i] but at the same time [i]Sweet, these suits are going to come alive.  It's so obvious, but I'm so helpless.  Oh man, this is gonna be fun.[/i] I was scared long before anything even happened.  My heart beat increased.  I was shaking.  It probably didn't help that I was playing in the dark at one in the morning.  I grabbed that item, and ran like hell.  I got hit once, bringing me into yellow health, which slowed my running speed a bit.  I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.  Let me tell you, those suits of armor sure can RUN!  I could hear them close on my trail the entire time.  I was so glad when I finally made it to the door for the next area.  I was safe.  I joined up with Leon, saved, and went to bed.  It took me a few minutes to calm down, but I enjoyed it.

Friday night was pretty cool, I guess.  Around five-thirty, Jason came over to pick me up from my mom's.  Heather, Jason, Alyssa, and myself went to Olive Garden for dinner, then we went to my dad's house to hang out.  They all left around eleven.  You could say it was fun.

Sprechen über drahtloses onlinespielen..  Ich habe das Mario Kart (DS) gespielt, und es ist sehr prima!  Ich hoffe, daß meine Kopie heute kommt.  Dann kann ich mit Jason onlinespielen, und mit David und Brian über der DS drahtloser lokales Anschluss.  Es macht so viel spaß!

Hmm..  Ich habe das Final Fantasy XI für fast eine Monat nicht gespielen.  Ich soll es speilen..

Schrieben nur auf Deutsch ist so schwer..  Aber..  es ist spaß, und es ist gute Praxis für Deutscheklasse.

Heute ins Deutscheklasse haben uns (Paul, Phil, Steve, Dave, und ich) unseres Rollenspiel gegeben.  Haben wir eine Werbung für AOL gegeben.  Wir war fertig nicht, aber es war nicht so schlecht.  Frau sagte, daß es gut war.

Ich will kein mehr schrieben.  Ich bin müde und ich will das Mario Kart spielen...  Ich habe nicht so viel Hausaufgaben!

I just checked my work schedule...  I work 6-11 tomorrow and 4-11 the day after.  Fun times ahead.  Maybe.

Um..  School's been pretty cool.  Swimming in the morning is really nice.  But, damn is it tiring!  We've been kicking around with the kickboards these past few days my legs get tired after a while.  Walking back to the shower, I feel like my legs are gonna fail me!  Sociology looks to be fun.  If not for the fact that Megan sits in front of me and she's usually pretty talkative.  As I said, Mary sits behind me, but we don't seem to talk as often :???:

Um.  I've actually been thinking about this homecoming thing.  :shock: I was planning on asking... a certain someone... but I don't have any classes with her...  I think her third hour is close to mine, but I don't know for sure.

I've been getting a nice amount of homework as of late.  Physics homework every night.  Trig with good 'ol Verlinde every night (but then again, I can finish most of the assignment, if not all, in class).  Honors homework isn't much worse than last year.  It's just that I already seem to be on my normal... thingy... of procrastination.

Yesterday in German, Frau handed out these sheets for us to fill out and give to our parents.  The two blanks were "Blackboard username" and "Blackboard password."  This was so that the parents would know our login and pass and be able to see what we're doing in our classes.  Phil said he didn't want to give his mom his password.  I said "change the password" and Frau gave me a dirty look.  "Seriously, change it to something he's not afraid to give out."  Every freaking head in the room turned to me.  It was creepy.  I attribute it to the fact that I don't speak much in that class (nor any other, for that matter) except when called upon to read something.  And even then, it's in German. 

The spent loads of money on new carpet for the entire forum over the summer.  Personally, I think that money could have gone towards things that were actualy needed.  But anyway.  There are these big "NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THE FORUM" signs right outside the forum doors.  That hasn't stopped Jason, Andrew, and Greg from drinking cranberry juice and cokes in there, respectively.  Well, until today, that is.  Jason, somehow, spilled his cranberry juice when he went to get up or something.  He got it all over his shoe and on his leg, but more importantly, he got it on the new carpet.  Teachers came from all over and got all riled up over a spill.  It was hilarious.  It took the principal, an associate principal, and the hall monitor to tell Jason that no drinks were allowed in the forum.  The hall monitor picked up the bottle and asked "Is this the bottle?  Is this the bottle??  Is THIS the bottle????"  As if she couldn't figure it out for herself.  She picked it up with a paper towel though.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Jason says they incarcerated his drink.  Tim was making fun of the hall monitor by saying "We've got the evidence!  WE'VE GOT THE EVIDENCE!" in his crazy, exaggerated voice that he so often does.  Hilarity all around.  Jason says nothing happened to him, though, so it's all good.  Mr. Monroe was asking us if he went to MST (for Jason was getting paper towels to dry the carpet), we suspect it's because they wanted to take him down to the office and punish him.  Luckily for Jason, though, he has MST in the morning.

And that's the funny story for the week.

Um...  What else is there?

I recently got Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS.  It's freaking awesome.  The main game levels were pretty easy, but it seemed like that got loads harder for the last few sets.  I've got two more levels left in main game, but I've only completed 24.7% of the game.  There's a ton of stuff to do otherwise.  You can go through the levels to collect medals, of which there are 250.  I only have 65.  You can also choose "Rainbow Run" mode and play through the game levels and several extra levels.  Depending on what option you choose from there, you either have to make it through the level as fast as possible, or you have to go through the level while using as little ink as possible.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of this game, your goal is to guide Kirby and protect him by drawing lines with your stylus.  This is because he was turned into a ball by an evil witch which (hehe) also happened to turn the entire world into a painting.  The entire game is controlled with the stylus.  At first it seems easy, but it does take a bit to get used to.  I've sent Kirby into the lava several times.

I guess that's everything...  I can't think of anything more... so... here it is!

Where to start..?  Um..  I beat Mario & Luigi (GBA) two nights ago.  I had been stuck on the final boss for a few months now.  I've had the game for over a year.  It's a good game, 'twas quite rewarding to have finally beat the game after all this time.

I set myself two goals before this Saturday.  1) Ding level 90 in PSO so I can access Ultimate.  2) Ding level 30 in FFXI so I can do the Dark Knight and Beastmaster quests (those ones specifically, but really I can unlock most any advance job now).  I hit level 90 in PSO with ease.  However, I've had a harder time hitting 30 in FFXI.  I am currently level 29 with less than half of the needed exp to go.  SO CLOSE!  I eventually gave up though, as there was no chance I was going to get an invite from any party in the area.  And now I'll have to wait a whole week just to get roughly two-thousand experience points!  Agh!!

I bought a copy of The Good Earth at Border's so I can do the second part of my summer assignment for Honors.  This part's due on the fifth.  I won't be back until the sixth or the seventh.  Whatever.  Ms. Szmiegil can't honestly expect people to be doing these assignments and turn them all in on time.  It's the freaking summer.  We're going to procrastinate, we're going to turn them in late.  We're not going to give a shit. 

AndrAIa's been acting up a bit as of late.  I can't run installshield installation programs anymore.  At least, not on my user.  I can do so just fine from the administrator account. o_O Things seem a bit slower overall, and blackbox hangs on shutdown.  As far as I can tell, however, this only happens when I play FFXI on my computer.  After I force-close blackbox, I have to force-close PlayOnline (after I already closed it before hand).  This abnormal behavior of POL and FFXI can be attributed to the windower I use.  FFXI doesn't natively allow one to play in windowed mode, so I downloaded a program (recommended by Tim) that allows me to play with FFXI in a window so I can still chat on AIM or look stuff up.  Funny thing is, the windower causes no problems on Brian's machine. o_O

I think I may have to wipe AndrAIa clean...  I'm not looking forward to that...  All the backup...  At least I have another partition to put things on AND my external harddrive (which still has >50% disk space free).  I've been kinda worried about her lately, though.  You know how during the summer, temperatures rise?  Well, it's not uncommon to see her running at 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  Infact, the only time I've seen her running lower is when I had the air conditioning on in our room piping cool air into the office when it was already somewhat cool out.  Mom said to turn off the air conditioner, though, as it was apparently "too cold" outside for it to be running.  I saw AndrAIa's temperature readout shoot from 108 to 120. :cry::cry:

I've been getting about one shift a week at work.  Last summer I was averaging two or three shifts a week.  But now, all the shifts are g oing to the newbies (understandable, i guess) as well as the rehires.  People are getting rehired at their old wage, in their old position, and getting MORE HOURS than I'm getting!  WTF ::kicks a wall::

Oh.  I'm going on vacation tomorrow.  Mackinac Island.  Going with Dad, Pia, Brian, David, and Ali (how DO you spell her name?).  A week.  Away from home.  Usually I look forward to vacations...  But right now... not so much...  I dunno why.  There's nothing really.. going on around here.  Heh, unlike last time we went up north.  The whole Jason-Heather thing...  Whoo, glad that's over with.

...

Anyway..

I wanna get back on FFXI to see if there are any parties willing to accept a lvl 29WAR/MNK in lvl 17WAR gear for just one more level, but I feel as if my endeavor would just be in vain.

I've started playing Final Fantasy 2 on the GBA compilation Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls and it's pretty cool.  I wanna bring the PS2 up with us so I can play Final Fantasy 4, but I seem to have left ALL PS2 discs at Mom's.  (FFXI doesn't require any discs, harddrive for the win).  Oh well...  Brian seems to recall them having a TV last time we were there...  Maybe we could bring the PS2 to watch some DVDs or something.  I dunno.  I also wanna play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but there's only two saves on the cartdridge and they're both taken by Brian and David.  David just started playing the game again after I kept bothering him about not playing it...  I doubt we'll have time to hit up an EBGames or something on the way Up North.  (And I seriously doubt any of the local ones will be open at 9AM, when we leave)

I'm don't have a Final Fantasy fetish, I swear.

Shelby's birthday party was last Saturday.  It was pretty cool.  I didn't go swimming, though I brought all the required gear.  Near the end of the night, most everyone partook in a game of Apples to Apples.  It was quite fun.  Basically a card is pulled from the green card stack and layed down in a place where everyone can see it.  Then, everyone else (everyone but the person who layed the green card) looks at their hand of red cards and tries to find a card that most fits the description on the green card.  The person who layed the green card then flips over all the red cards and chooses the one they agree with most.  They then give the green card to the person that layed the winning red card.  Next person in line lays a green card.  Rinse and repeat.  To spice things up, there were cards that had people (people at the party) and descriptions or phrases that described them.  Most were red, some were green. o_O

It seems I kept to myself most of the night until Catherine showed up.  We mostly talked geek/nerd stuff <_<

Well, I'm out, gotta shower and pack for tomorrow...

That's a REAL screenshot from the upcoming Zelda '05.

Check out the Video. (WARNING: 30MB download)

Also from IGN:
Once the service begins later this year, Nintendo DS users will be able to connect to the service wirelessly at universal Wi-Fi hot spots in use all over the world. Nintendo's in-house development team is already creating Animal Crossing DS to support global Wi-Fi connectivity.