Worst console name?

corblimey

Disregarding the Xbox 360 (why 360?) and the Wii (hee, sounds like wee), what is the worst named console? For my money, the Playstation is a ridiculous name, but it's fairly ubiquitous now, so I'm going for Sega Saturn. Great machine, terrible name.

PS: I know the Japanese console market gets pretty wacky with its naming algorithms (FM Towns Marty anyone?).

ghostchant

N-Gage

Retr0gamer

Nothing wrong with the saturn. Thought playstation was pretty crap but like Wii I just got used to it. The worst however was Dreamcast. They should have stuck with Katana.

tman

Virtual Boy

Worst name for an emulator would have to be Visual Boy Advance... Felt like a right paedo with a shortcut to that on my desktop!:o

kdave

playstation 4

Atavan-Halen

Genesis. Sounds so...feminine compared to MEGADRIVE!! GRR!!

Azhrei

kdave wrote: »

playstation 4

Also PlayStation 2, 3 and 5. Get a clue, Sony.

Apple Pippin, Nokia N-Gage and Fairchild Channel F are all terrible names.

Butch Cassidy

When you think about it, they're all fairly ridiculous!

Mega Drive sounded ****ing cool AND MEGA!!!
Nintendo and all it's successors was alright and innoffensive. N64 was a bit silly but it stood out.


32X was stupid
Saturn was a bit silly
Playstation isn't bad because it is a play-station!
Dreamcast? ehhh... Dreamcast? - never got that one!
Atari Jaguar? why a jaguar?! Why not a puma, cheetah or panther!
Xbox I always thought was silly but I agree "360" makes even less sense. Maybe Microsoft thought if they'd put a number on it they'd create a new bit war!!

Butch Cassidy

I hate the way people call their Xbox 360 and games just "Xbox". Does my head in when looking/asking/searching for Xbox "original" stuff.

Azhrei

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

Playstation isn't bad because it is a play-station!

Not really. The name comes from the SNES CD add-on Sony was developing for Nintendo back in the day. It is a perfect name for a Nintendo system - Nintendo, who concentrates on pure gaming more than any other company. The PSX could do nothing but play games (and music cd's, I guess), but PS2 played DVD's and had (limited) 'net access, while the PS3 is, in console terms at least, a media powerhouse. The majority of early PS3 purchases were in order to acquire a cheap Blu-Ray player.

The name no longer applies. It's Sony's problem that they are afraid to innovate, preferring to safely imitate instead. I don't know what their executives are like, but I'd imagine the conversations went along these lines -

"Nintendo's developing an analogue stick controller?! Then we'd better put one on ours!"
"Make it two, sir. More is always better."
"Clever man!"

"Okay, okay, so we have our nice shiny new PS2. What can we do with the controller?"
"Well, Nintendo hasn't let on what they're doing with their new controller yet, so why don't we just one-up the N64 again by adding rumble into the controller without the need for an expansion pak?"
"Aha, I like your thinking. That'll show 'em!"

"Alright guys, the PS3 is a while away yet. I'm thinking this time we try coming up with a new controller."
"Hmm... hmm... I'm not sure, boss."
"Oh, come on. Give it a try."
...
"Well, we tried. Here it is."
"It looks like a banana!"
"Well, yeah, but once you hold it, you realise how comfortable and natural the shape is."
"Good job people. Let's see how the fans take it."
...
"RUN AWAY! BAD KARMA, BAD KARMA!"
"Yeah, yeah... best go back to the old design. Nintendo's doing that motion thingy with their new system, maybe we should add a **** implementation of it into our classic, totally not SNES-derived controller."
"I like your thinking, boss."
...
"Damn, Nintendo's really become successful. And that new motion attachment thinger looks to make them even more so. Get our guys working on a completely new controller design, that doesn't imitate Nintendo in any way. And give it a terrible name."

Damn, Sony. You got some moves.

x in the city

corblimey wrote: »

Disregarding the Xbox 360 (why 360?) and the Wii (hee, sounds like wee), what is the worst named console? For my money, the Playstation is a ridiculous name, but it's fairly ubiquitous now, so I'm going for Sega Saturn. Great machine, terrible name.

PS: I know the Japanese console market gets pretty wacky with its naming algorithms (FM Towns Marty anyone?).

theres a eat out in frankfurt am main called 360, questioned them about it and its to do with encompassing a whole circle, everything as it were.

so its probably the 360 means.. everyone

Azhrei

XBox comes from DirectX, then DirectXBox, hence XBox. The 360 is indeed Microsoft's idea of stupid people thinking that PlayStation 3 must be better than Xbox 2. The 360 circle stuff is corporate nonsense.They will surely choose a new name for the 360's successor.

I hate the way people call their Xbox 360 and games just "Xbox". Does my head in when looking/asking/searching for Xbox "original" stuff.

Why? It's much the same as people talking about "PlayStation" or asking about "Nintendo" games. They have a specific system in mind, it's just that the brand name is so ubiquitous.

Dark Savior

Gizmondo - ugh, trys to hard to be cool and fails.

ghostchant

Don't forget the game.com, pronounced 'game com'...why make it look like a web address for god's sake?!

batari

Famicom - sounds like a tampon.

jhegarty

Someone add a poll so Atari Jaguar can be a serious answer for once !

Azhrei

atariman wrote: »

Famicom - sounds like a tampon.

Family Computer.

Blazer

Azhrei wrote: »

XBox comes from DirectX, then DirectXBox, hence XBox. The 360 is indeed Microsoft's idea of stupid people thinking that PlayStation 3 must be better than Xbox 2. The 360 circle stuff is corporate nonsense.They will surely choose a new name for the 360's successor.

Rumours are Xbox 720

martineatworld

Can't believe it hasn't been mentioned, although I guess it was never big over here...

The Wonderswan.

At the risk of sounding juvenile, it's the gayest possible name for a console! What were they thinking...

ghostchant

Yeah I was going to mention that, then I realised I hated the name N-Gage more for its stupid text-speak sounding name.
Oh and I know we're excluding it, but surely everyone agrees the Wii is almost certainly the worst name for a console ever, yes?

Myrddin

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

When you think about it, they're all fairly ridiculous!

Mega Drive sounded ****ing cool AND MEGA!!!
Nintendo and all it's successors was alright and innoffensive. N64 was a bit silly but it stood out.


32X was stupid
Saturn was a bit silly
Playstation isn't bad because it is a play-station!
Dreamcast? ehhh... Dreamcast? - never got that one!
Atari Jaguar? why a jaguar?! Why not a puma, cheetah or panther!
Xbox I always thought was silly but I agree "360" makes even less sense. Maybe Microsoft thought if they'd put a number on it they'd create a new bit war!!

The 32X - a 32 bit add on for an existing console, seems good to me.
Saturn - Sega used planetary names for project codenames, neptune/mars etc were all console codenames...frankly I like the name Saturn.
Dreamcast - why? To cast your dreams into reality of course
Atari Jaguar - Speed my good friend, a Jaguar is one of the fastest cats in town, meaning this Atari was supposedly faster/more powerful than anything else at the time.
XBox - Indeed comes from Direct X Box, the 360 name has been explained above.

Frankly, Gamecube is a little weak. But dont be stabbing consoles in the back lads

CiDeRmAn

Playstation was easily the best name ever for a games console so far, given that for 15 years the name was synonymous with games console, like Hoover was to vacuum cleaner, Saturn never had a chance, and so it is probably the historically worst console name as it promised so much and delivered so little, at least when compared to the PS.
Now don't get on your soap box, I have a Saturn, love it, I have loads of games, many great exclusives, but i have more on the PS, and more games that either only came out on it or the best editions were on the PS, Wipeout 2097 for example, F197 is another.

Then, whats in a name, all the Wii jokes seem weak now, now that nearly everyone owns one!

Gizmondo was pretty crap, as was the Tapwave, all trying for the two/three syllable hook into the collective shopping conciousness, but failing miserably!

Jack burton

Even though the jaguar is pretty silly i think Ataris whole cat themed consoles is pretty good.

The Jaguar, The Lynx, The Puma (cancelled) The bigger the cat the better the console :P

Sega Mega Drive! does exaclty what is says on the tin! its mega and it drives! :P Sounds better than "the blast processor" or the "blastie box"

Well I still have my hopes up for the Sega Hyper Drive or Mega Dream!

ghostchant

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Playstation was easily the best name ever for a games console so far, given that for 15 years the name was synonymous with games console, like Hoover was to vacuum cleaner, Saturn never had a chance, and so it is probably the historically worst console name as it promised so much and delivered so little, at least when compared to the PS.
Now don't get on your soap box, I have a Saturn, love it, I have loads of games, many great exclusives, but i have more on the PS, and more games that either only came out on it or the best editions were on the PS, Wipeout 2097 for example, F197 is another.

Then, whats in a name, all the Wii jokes seem weak now, now that nearly everyone owns one!

Gizmondo was pretty crap, as was the Tapwave, all trying for the two/three syllable hook into the collective shopping conciousness, but failing miserably!

Even at its height I heard some people (i.e. parents with their kids) referring to the PS as a Nintendo..but I don't think that any brand has come close to being the 'Hoover' or 'Coke' of video games. The PS was better than the Saturn (in my opinion), and obviously way more successful, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether 'Saturn' was a good name for a console or not.

Yeah Gizmondo is one of the worst. Having a crap name isn't half as bad as having a gangster as one of the company executives though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Eriksson

Dr Bob

Jack burton wrote: »

Even though the jaguar is pretty silly i think Ataris whole cat themed consoles is pretty good.

The Jaguar, The Lynx, The Puma (cancelled) The bigger the cat the better the console :P

Sega Mega Drive! does exaclty what is says on the tin! its mega and it drives! :P Sounds better than "the blast processor" or the "blastie box"

Well I still have my hopes up for the Sega Hyper Drive or Mega Dream!

I dunno , Always preferred Megadrive to its terrible U.S. name :Genesis.

Jack burton

Well the genesis is for a new beginning but i love the mega drive

osprey

It's a strange thing, but you often set aside the name of a new console in favour of what it can do. There's a general feeling out there at the time that what ever name it is - it's the greatest thing on earth. Reading these posts I am in agreement with a few people, as time passes you look back and laugh a bit!

Atavan-Halen

Not strictly a name but the development name for the Gamecube, the Dolphin. I highly doubt that anyone would have bought it if it was called the Dolphin.

"Oh hey, wanna come to my house and play with my new Dolphin? ^.^"

"O.o"

landsleaving

atavan-halen wrote: »

Not strictly a name but the development name for the Gamecube, the Dolphin. I highly doubt that anyone would have bought it if it was called the Dolphin.

"Oh hey, wanna come to my house and play with my new Dolphin? ^.^"

"O.o"

I don't think nintendo considered that argument tbh.

"Oh hey, wanna come to my house and play with my wii?"

Emmmm...

Gunmonkey

I always thought the PSP had a stupid name: the Playstation Portable, wow you guys really earned your paychecks with naming that alright.

And if 32X (32 bit eXpansion) is stupid, what about the Nintendo 64??

carlowed

nee-yo-gee-yo