That's the name of the new Nintendo system, formerly known as the Revolution.

I'm not going to do much to defend it. In fact, that seems to be Nintendo's raison d'etre: do whatever it takes to make it impossible for fans to defend them. "Gamers don't want online play." "It will be a third pillar for our company." "We're calling it the Wii." "We think our relationship with [Squaresoft/Rareware/Silicon Knights/pick any third party developer] has reached its limit and we're parting ways."

But before we forget, just about every video game system ever made has had a terrible name. Can you think of a single system that didn't make you twitch when you first heard the name? Granted, there hasn't been a name as pretentious as Wii since perhaps the Genesis... but then again, at least Genesis is a word. Technically, I guess Wii is a word, "we," but that's not going to do much once you step out of Perrin Kaplan's Reality Distortion Field. (The whole thing is veeeery Apple, isn't it?) But look at what history shows us:

Dreamcast. Come on. You can't sit there and pretend that you didn't think that was super-gay when you first heard it. Dude, when you bandy about the word "dream" to kids, it means girlie stuff. Barbie Dream Car. Care Bears. Whatever cloying, sugary message Disney is using at any given moment. I don't even know what to say about stapling it to "cast."

Game Boy. That name has been awful for over fifteen years now. A classic example of something just not translating quite right to the global audience.

PlayStation. "Play"? Who wants the word "play" in their system name? It's almost as bad as using the word "game." It reminds me of that George Carlin bit where he compares the manly words used in football to the sissy words used in baseball. ("In football, you wear a helmet! And in baseball, you wear a cap.") Oh, and don't forget that mid-90's standard: the middle capital!

Xbox. Actually a codename, but stuck when Microsoft couldn't imagine anything better. The use of the letter X was already several years overplayed before this hulk of a system dropped into aisles. Simply embarrassing. Not helped when fanboys worldwide disagree on how to spell it. xBox. XBOX. X-Box. XBox.

GameCube. Tragically disappointing. It's a cube that plays games, duh. Coloring it purple did not help butch it up one bit. To this day, I'm surprised that we all glommed onto "Wavebird" so readily.

Xbox 360. Oh my god, marketroids in action. Even after they realized that 360 simply turns one around to the very same location, it still stayed on. Commits the horrible flaw of making the sub-brand ("360") more mnemonically powerful than the main brand. No one even calls this thing an Xbox anymore. That sound you hear is the word Xbox being dropped from your vocabulary.

Nintendo 64. What does "64" even mean? Go ahead, scoff and say "64 bit system." Now I'll ask you WTF does "64 bit system" mean? To most consumers, the 64 just seemed like a random number tacked on to sound like it is 64 times better than your older system.

But yet, how many of those systems achieved unprecedented success (in some measure, at least), despite the name? How long did it take before you used "Dreamcast" in a sentence without feeling like Strawberry Shortcake? Maybe we'll all be saying Wii like it's our own name in a year.

I'll tell you this: I'm still goddamn buying one, no matter what they call it.

Had you asked me for a prediction before the Wii announcement, I would have guessed that the Revolution would be re-christened Nintendo HS. Or CS. Or WS. Or some other combination of letters... first, because the Nintendo DS is a raging hit that nobody expected and Nintendo needs to ride that wave for a bit. And secondly, because that's what cars do and whatever cars do is cool now and forever. You make the letters vague enough to stand for whatever your press release demands, and you get to keep the Nintendo name front and center. Sony lost to PlayStation right out of the gate, and Xbox is swiftly falling before 360 (and they didn't even attempt to brand it with Microsoft, since everybody associates that name with shit.)

But no, Nintendo just dropped their own name from their big new project that they've already promised will save gaming as we know it.

Unless you happen to be a conspiracy theorist and suspect that Nintendo is just - in the words of Keita Takahashi - messing with us. Release a fake name just before E3, get a ton of free press, whip up fanboys on both sides of the fence, then announce the real name during the big E3 conference. Drop the Bob-Bomb, indeed.

That would be fun.