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Nintendo still sucks at making new console names. Follow

#1 Aug 29 2014 at 10:48 AM Rating: Good
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http://www.siliconera.com/2014/08/29/xenoblade-chronicles-remake-announced-new-nintendo-3ds/

Here's a new 3DS. But it's different. And here's some 3DS games but they can't play on older 3DS models.

Is it a Wii / Wii-U all over again? Why can't they just name it something unique and just advertise it as backward compatible with older system games?

At least with the 3DS and XL models, and the 2DS, the difference was not what games it could play.

Make the Wii U then have to create an advertising campaign to inform users that it's a new system.

Make the 2DS and have to advertise that it is the same as the old system.

Now they make the 3DS new model. And will have to explain to users the some 3DS games won't work for their existing 3DS models.

Now add in the lack of a universal account system across multiple Nintendo devices ( which has been getting better lately I guess). And you just have to wonder what they are thinking and how they are as successful as they are.
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#2 Aug 29 2014 at 10:55 AM Rating: Good
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A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

That said, it's pretty stupid to call their new system the Wii U. As a general rule, consumers are stupid and will have trouble telling the difference.
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#3 Aug 29 2014 at 11:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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Another new 3DS? Damn it, even my cell phone lasts longer than this noise.
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#4 Aug 29 2014 at 11:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
Another new 3DS? Damn it, even my cell phone lasts longer than this noise.


Glad to know that you're not an Apple sheep.
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#5 Aug 29 2014 at 11:39 AM Rating: Good
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WHAT THE HELL.

They have got to be kidding. I was/am a big fan of the 3DS but that's just a slap in the face for 3DS owners.
#6 Aug 29 2014 at 11:48 AM Rating: Good
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Well, instead of releasing a completely new non-backwards compatible handheld, (It's roughly that time in the dev cycle) they are releasing a new handheld that takes the same carriage slots as the 3DS line. This seems like an improvement over the previous design strategy, not a slap in the face.
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#7 Aug 29 2014 at 11:58 AM Rating: Good
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3DS was backwards compatible with DS... it was always highly unlikely that they would release a new system that wasn't backwards compatible with 3DS at the least and probably DS too.

I just already own 2 3DSes...I'm going to feel like a sucker grabbing another one - and you can only have 1 3ds associated with your nintendo network ID, so I am going to have to decide if I move all my data to a new one... which I probably will since I generally only carry 1 3DS around and I have a bajillion games on my XL

And I just got a copy of the original xenoblade chronicles this week... ugh.... and I know I'm gonna buy the special edition xenoblade LL they release... I just know it... oh well I guess I can sell my red XL for a song.

*wallet is crying*

*I'm a sucker*

Edited, Aug 29th 2014 11:00am by Olorinus
#8 Aug 29 2014 at 12:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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Iamadam wrote:
As a general rule, consumers are stupid and will have trouble telling the difference.


As a young teen, I recall buying one of the Legend of Zelda games (Oracle of Seasons or Oracle of Ages... forget which) and being so excited to play it on my Gameboy... my original, regular Gameboy.

Many tears were heroically held back when I found out it would only work on a Gameboy Color Smiley: frown
#9 Aug 29 2014 at 12:47 PM Rating: Good
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Timelordwho wrote:
Well, instead of releasing a completely new non-backwards compatible handheld, (It's roughly that time in the dev cycle) they are releasing a new handheld that takes the same carriage slots as the 3DS line. This seems like an improvement over the previous design strategy, not a slap in the face.


The problem is the naming. And seemingly not wanting to refer to it as a "new" console but an improved version of the existing. Now they'll have multiple versions of the 3DS and 3DS games that may not work on both.

(Unless they wise up and rename the thing before it hits the streets)
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#10 Aug 29 2014 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
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They're not going to rename it. That's for sure.

Let's just hope this is the last of the 3DS naming era. Can you imagine the ******** if they released another 3DS? Parents asking for the new 3DS and clerks having to tear their hair out to figure out what that means.
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#11 Aug 29 2014 at 1:51 PM Rating: Good
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4DS you lose track of all time in the the 4th dimension!
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#12 Aug 29 2014 at 3:11 PM Rating: Good
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This will probably end up being like the DSi. A few games that NEED it but most people will never actually need the new features. Not like so many games can even use the right stick, let alone require it.
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#13 Aug 29 2014 at 7:15 PM Rating: Good
Couldn't the "New 3ds" just be a holding name until they decide on what to call it...?

Anyways.. It sounds like to me they just had a bad case of I WANT THIS GAME ON HERE! But the system can't handle it. MAKE A NEW ONE.

They should approach gamestop and have some trade-in where you get the newer one for just a 30-50 dollar payment.. Ahh the world I live in my head.
#14 Aug 29 2014 at 7:37 PM Rating: Good
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It would be a really bad idea to announce the product with a placeholder name. It's really poor for your branding and it messes with SEO to do so.

You really only have two good options for announcing a product. Either announce it without a name, or announce it with the actual name. And you're only going to do the first one if it's quite a ways out. Japan is getting the "New Nintendo 3DS" and "New Nintendo 3DSXL" by the end of the year.
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#15 Aug 29 2014 at 9:05 PM Rating: Decent
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idiggory the Fussy wrote:
It would be a really bad idea to announce the product with a placeholder name. It's really poor for your branding and it messes with SEO to do so.


As opposed to releasing a new product with an identical name? How are they going to differentiate the new 3DS and old 3DS games? DS to DSi, Wii to WiiU, now 3DS to 3DS.

Nintendo's one of the few gaming companies that has the ability to print money, yet they seem to be intentionally, and repeatedly, throwing the printer out the window.
#16 Aug 29 2014 at 9:28 PM Rating: Good
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Honestly, the thing with this name is that it's actually probably a genius name, as long as it's the last 3DS.

Why?

Because Nintendo's core demographic is gamers, who will know everything about the system like hipsters and iPhones, and kids, who are going to be asking their parents for it.

So they could give it a name like "3DS U" or whatever stupid name they came up with, yeah. But that's not really going to get them new buyers in the gamer arena. But what they CAN do is make the kid -> parent interaction easier. Regardless of what the name is, parents are going to remember "new 3ds," but they'll try to remember the actual name, and that'll confuse them. But by making the name of the new 3DS just BE New 3DS, they completely erase the confusion factor there.

I mean, their parents are gonna have to know if they want a 2DS, a 3DS, or a New 3DS.

I think this could actually be Nintendo reacting to the Wii U name, where they realized that they needed to be really clear with names given they weren't serving a demographic that was going to know a decent bit about the new system before they bought it.

I think it's a stupid name in terms of being in the gamer demographic. But Nintendo wasn't going to win or lose my sale on a name. And that goes for most gamers. We're going to buy the damn thing and make fun of the name as we do it.

Same thing we've done for a long time now. For multiple systems.
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#17 Aug 29 2014 at 9:46 PM Rating: Decent
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Two problems with your theory, speaking as someone who's been stuck working in retail for the past few months, specifically in the electronics department. One, parents don't know what they hell they're looking for. I've had people ask me where the Nintendo games were. Two, retail employees don't know what the hell they're selling. The majority of the people I work with could find the games isle, but they'd probably have a nervous breakdown if you asked them to grab a specific console.
#18 Aug 29 2014 at 9:48 PM Rating: Good
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Except that is literally my point about why "New 3DS" is easily preferable to just about any other possible name for the product?
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#19 Aug 30 2014 at 6:51 AM Rating: Decent
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I know that, but you're missing mine. Your point still requires the ability to identify what it is they're looking for on the basic level, which many can't do. Also, many of these kids aren't as savvy as you give them credit for. When they see a game for the 3DS, they won't distinguish between new and old, meaning the parent will buy it and then rage on the store when it doesn't work. Adding the word "New" to the title doesn't make it any easier to remember when they can't remember the name of the thing in the first place, and only makes the problem significantly worse when they attempt to figure it out. If stores were to stop selling the older consoles and games that would be one thing, but they won't, meaning they're going to be selling two different items, side-by-side, with the same name.
#20 Aug 30 2014 at 9:28 AM Rating: Good
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Your first point is a general fact about how inept the consumer can be. When we're talking about people that are that low on the totem pole, a new name wasn't going to help. At all. So it's not really reasonable to critique the name off of that, in my opinion. They could have called it the JEVUS 67-12 and that's not going to help matters any more.

What Nintendo is hoping is that they'll hit the greatest swathe of their demographic by doubling down on existing terms in their Brand ("Nintendo" and "3DS"). What they get by calling it the "New 3DS" is that it makes it more likely a consumer will remember it. Why? Because it is an unusual naming convention, and the name is what the parent would want to ask for anyway.

"What's this thing called?"
"The New 3DS" (Alt: New Nintendo, depending on what the parent typically calls it)
"No, I'm asking what it's called?"
"That is what it's called, it's the New 3DS"

That's more likely to stick in the parent's brain than something else might, so it's already a stronger branded name than pretty much anything else they could think of.


I mean, "New" isn't going to help or hurt in the case where the parent has absolutely no clue what they want. But it will help in cases in where the parent sort of knows what the product is. And if the name can spawn just that tiny interaction above in a significant portion of the demographic, that's massive for branding purposes

The naming-and-software thing has been a problem for each of the DS generations. DS > DSi > 3DS, and now New 3DS. It's a product of NIntendo releasing multiple versions of the same product, with different capabilities. There's absolutely going to be confusion, yeah. But Nintendo actively doesn't want to brand the new product differently, because that would be horrible for their sales.

It's way better to have confused parents buying incompatible products than to just abandon your brand image. I mean, it would be best for the consumer if Nintendo would stick to 1 device per cycle. But it's way better for Nintendo to brand all those products uniformly.

And remember, Nintendo doesn't WANT the stores to stop selling 3DS games, because 3DS games are nearly all of what the New 3DS plays. The only compatibility issue is with the newest games and the older 3DSs. SO Nintendo would hope that as the number of New 3DS products rise, it puts pressure on parents to get the new system.


Does that suck a ton for retail employees? Absolutely. But Nintendo is going to laugh all the way to the bank.
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#21 Aug 30 2014 at 10:05 AM Rating: Good
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You could have just said "branding," nerd.
#22 Aug 30 2014 at 10:12 AM Rating: Good
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It's fair. But still.
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#23 Aug 30 2014 at 11:31 AM Rating: Decent
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Far as I am concerned Nintendo has been going down hill since the Gamecube. They release way too many remakes of older games that I have played to death all ready as well as releasing consoles that are underpowered with gimmicky controls that generally just make games more difficult than they need to me.
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#24 Aug 30 2014 at 1:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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I don't think Nintendo has gone down hill, I think that a lot of gamers are annoyed that Nintendo didn't grow with the same ideology as Sony/Microsoft did. But I'm also really not convinced we need a THIRD company making an essentially identical product.

The Wii U isn't a bad system by any means. Whether or not it succeeds will come down to how Nintendo supports it.

Will I buy one? Probably not. I'm not a particular fan of Mario/Pikmin/Metroid/<insert series here>. But I'm not really a fan of ANY of Microsoft or Sony's exclusive series, particularly if KH actually goes cross-platform (like I believe they announced?). I wish Halo was cross-platform, but that's about it.

But there are a LOT of gamers out there who are particular fans of those series, and that's a big allure to the machine. And it's an allure Nintendo can cash in on without having to try and compete with two companies who are industry giants. That's a big deal. Nintendo will never be able to create a console to rival the PS4/XBone and price it similarly. They just can't.

What they can do is invest in their first party titles to give their console a truly unique library, so there's reason to own it regardless of whether or not you buy a PS4/XBone/Gaming PC.

Hell, ironic as it is, if I was to buy a console the Wii U would probably be the wisest choice. It offers me the greatest number of new, big-budget games in addition to my gaming PC, as well as all the streaming apps I care about. If FFXV and KH3 were announced to be on the PC, I'd have very, very little reason to want anything other than a Wii U.
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#25 Aug 30 2014 at 10:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory the Fussy wrote:
I don't think Nintendo has gone down hill, I think that a lot of gamers are annoyed that Nintendo didn't grow with the same ideology as Sony/Microsoft did. But I'm also really not convinced we need a THIRD company making an essentially identical product.

Agreed. I'm perfectly happy to let Sony and Microsoft duke it out with AAA titles while Nintendo frolics in happy sunshine land.

Nintendo isn't playing the same game as Sony/Microsoft. They're kind of off by themselves in their own little Nintendo world, and that's OK. There's some pretty neat stuff in Nintendo world. Their consoles may not be as powerful and they may not have the same 3rd party support, but they make fun games and they're not afraid to innovate. Sometimes the innovation pays off (dual screens on the DS) and sometimes it's more gimmicky than necessary (wiimote) but at least Nintendo is willing to try new things, which is more than you can say about the rest of the industry.

I don't own any of the current gen consoles but if I was going to buy one today it'd be a Wii U, not a PS4 or an XB1.
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#26 Sep 06 2014 at 3:09 PM Rating: Good
@Idiggory(Since quoting his various posts about the subject would make this one too bigXD)

It's not uncommon in this industry for systems to have holding names. I know the Wii had a different name until about a year before launch. The kinect for the 360 was called Nital up until a few months before it launched if I recall. I believe even the 360 had a different name at first.

On the other hand, hypothetically, they could just be replacing the old ones with the new ones. Just not selling the older version of the DS anymore in lue of the new ones at the same price. Which I have seen done with other products before however not yet in this industry.
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