Incredible Microsoft and Nintendo ignorance

[The Ghost of RubangB]

JUG said:

Feylic said:
Lot's of people I knew used to think that "Nintendo" was what gaming system's were called. Even when I got a PS1, they'd say, let's go play Nintendo.

Wow, that's the kind of branding companies dream of! Like when google found out people were using their company name to reference the action of using a search engine.

I forget what the word for it is, but there's a word for when a brand name becomes so popular it gets used for the product, no matter who makes it.  This is the case with Jacuzzi, Kleenex, Coke, Google, Spandex, Thermos, JELL-O, Xerox, and many others.  Those are all brand names.  Many people have called every gaming system a Nintendo for decades now.  Some people called every gaming system a PlayStation when Sony was on the throne.  And in the handheld market, everything's a Game Boy.  When the PSP came out, many people went "Oh, Sony made a Game Boy too now?"  I think one news outlet accidentally called the DS a PlayStation Game Boy or something crazy like that.

d21lewis said:
My stepbrother thought that the Turbo-grafx 16 was made by Nintendo. He thought Nec stood for Nintendo Entertainment Center. Good times.

Ooh, that's a good one!  I haven't heard that one before, but it actually makes sense.  I want to start assuming every acronym that starts with NE is Nintendo Entertainment something.