Console Naming

[Darashiva]

As far as naming conventions are concerned, I think Sony has been the most successful overall with PlayStation. It's easy to understand, and when they add a bigger number at the end everyone gets what it means, and the same is true when they made the PlayStation Portable. It was instantly clear to everyone what it meant, which is unfortunately not the case with the Vita, which was their one bad console name.

Nintendo has been kinda all over the place with their names, and sometimes it works (NES, SNES, Switch), and other times not so much (WiiU, Virtual Boy). They clearly like to experiment and come up with a new name that fits the concept they have for each new console. Overall, though, they've been successful more often than not, and the new names do give the console a unique identity.

Microsoft is probably the most unwieldy with their names. Xbox works well, and Xbox 360 sounds like a good name for a successor to the first console, but after that its gotten a bit stupid. Xbox One, Xbox One X and S, and the name of the new console that I still don't properly remember without looking it up. It just doesn't look or sound good as a name in my opinion.

As far as how important names are, they can certainly have an impact, but there are always other factors to take into account. The Wii honestly wasn't, and still isn't a very good name for a console, but Nintendo managed to build a massive success around the brand. Then they made the WiiU, and a large section of the people on the casual side of gaming likely didn't understand what made it different than the Wii, so they didn't get it and the console failed.

In general, Sony seems to like to play it safe with the names of their consoles, while Nintendo tends to come up with new names every one or two generations, and Microsoft is somewhere between the two, sticking to one core brand, but doesn't stick with a specific naming convention otherwise.