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Comment by pezezin | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, only Sony follows a consistent naming convention. Nintendo's console names also defy any logic, as did Sega back in the day.

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Nintendo's strategy isn't the absolute worst. They mostly just give new names to new console designs, with modifiers to specify next-gen-without-major-changes. So the SNES was a next-gen NES, the N64 was its own thing, the GameCube was its own thing, the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advanced were iterations on the same thing, DS, DSi, 3DS were all generation steps. WiiU was a next-gen Wii, Switch 2 is a next-gen Switch.

They probably should have called the WiiU the Super Wii or Wii 2 or something, but on the whole they've got a mostly coherent naming convention.

I would put the would put the wii firmly in the gamecube family line. it's a uprated gamecube with a weird controller.

    nes:snes = 6502
    n64 = mips
    gamecube:wii:wiiu = powerpc
    switch:switch2 = arm

Yes, the Wii is essentially an overclocked GameCube with a bit more RAM and as you mentioned, a weird controller.

As a regular human who plays games and doesn't know about chip architectures, one woud probably lump the wii and the switch closer together than the game cube based on the modes in which one can interact with the systems.

Wii is a game cube with a funny controller. Or, wii is a tv-only olde switch.

I appreciate that it has its own name due to being a transitional experience.

I don’t think Nintendo’s scheme was ever that great as it blurred the difference between variant form factors (Game Boy Pocket vs Game Boy, Game Boy Micro/SP vs Game Boy Advance, DS Lite, 2/3DS XL, Wii Mini), pro models with limited exclusives (Game Boy Color, DSi, New 2/3DS), and full on new generations (Game Boy Advance, 3DS, Wii U).

In terms of naming, no other entity in computing will ever be able to surpass IBM solipsistic naming habits:

System 360 OS/2 DB 2 MQ series. PC

It is like IBM just refused to entertain the idea of having competitors, why should it them name a database by any other name than DB?

That is exactly what IBM thought too when they allowed Bill Gates to license the new OS they were supposed to be making for IBM. They had no competition, who are these kids going to sell their OS to?

You are forgetting Valve!

We got the Steam Controller and the new... Steam Controller.

We also got the Steam machine, as well as the new Steam machine.

Lol

Sony's naming style for its mobile phone series is also terrible.

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