A swan with a marketing degree
sure, not a perfect name, and I’ve I never heard of it, in fact I had to google it and still barely have a vibe of what it is, but if I were a 10 year old girl in 1999 and my parents told me I could buy a WonderSwan or a gameboy, and mind you this could be my first video game system, and if both me and my parents were ignorant about which of these devices is hot garbage and which is finely aged wine, I’d probably pick WonderSwan.
In fact, I’m curious how much gender damage was done, socially and profitably, by Nintendo choosing a gendered name for their line of devices. I can imagine myself picking WonderSwan for some dumbass boys-goto-jupiter-and-have-cuties playground reason.
Never heard of it until now. It seems I’m not the first to think, Anyway, here’s WonderSwan.
Should have been Wondergoose.
Exaxtly
Me. I did it.
Bandai chose the name of the system to highlight its aesthetics and technical capabilities because the swan is recognized as an elegant bird with powerful legs that aid its graceful swimming
I like it.
It was surprising to me that it was designed by the designer of the original Game Boy after he left Nintendo when the name just sounds like some kind of weird Taiwanese knockoff
WonderOwl was right there
Or for maximum penetration into the American market
RadEagle
Ngl RadEagle sounds cool
Maybe it’s the kind of situation where it sounds stupid to native speakers but cool to non-native speakers.
Also the Wonderswan is underrated. Doesn’t have as good a library as the GBA but still lots of gems and even a Clock Tower port.
It might sound a little weird, but only slightly more so than other Japanese English names like Walkman or Game Boy.
Judgment Silversword is a good WonderSwan shmup, btw.
while there are names that could obviously be better (there are many more interesting birds), it’s probably the best name for a console ever
