futuramaguy42 wrote:If you think about it, DS is a pretty lame name, DS just stands for Dual Screen so the DS lite is Dual Screen Lite, and the DSi is Dual Screen i, which is not catchy at all. It's not even like dual screens are a new thing, Nintendo used to make dual screen Game and Watches. I think Gameboy Touch would have worked a bit better, I mean, the touch screen is the new and most important feature, not the dual screens.
The "touch" buzzword has only really been popular the last two years or so. The problem for Nintendo is they need to use a term that Joe Public is familiar with for he current-gen tech.
"DS" obviously covers the existing product, which started in 2004. They can't really change that name now for this product line. The "i" was popularised by Apple with their iEverything (iMac, iPod, iTunes...) approach, and along with the "eBlah" fad before it, is generally intended to promote some sort of Internet-capable device (with "Internet" meaning different things to different companies - from actually browsing the web to just providing online content via a store).
When "DS" was initially chosen, Nintendo wanted to move away from the "boy" in "Gameboy". The whole GBA marketing was "the boy has grown up", and it was pretty clear Nintendo didn't want the GBA (nor the DS) to be seen as a "boys only" toy. That is pretty obvious when you see who the DS is marketed at these days, with the majority of TV commercials featuring middle aged women and/or couples.
Most of the time I find marketing a load of horse shit. Although it's semi-interesting to see why companies choose particular names for their products, most people on these forums are more likely to buy based on the tech itself. I would have bought a DS whether it was called "touch" or "steaming pile of turd" for that matter.
