There's too many words below about naming products. So for some gaming content, I've been hearing Animal Well is pretty great! Haven't picked it up yet but looking forward to it eventually. Basically haven't gamed much at all outside of Tetr.io on my computer. Saw that Tetris TGM2 came out a while back so that's on my short list too. Hopefully TGM3 will get a port one day.
They’re actually not bad. The NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy [Color/Advance], and Switch were all phenomenal names. The DS and Wii were both excellent too. Where the wheels come off is with the DS variations making the 3DS look like yet another variation and then the Wii U doing the same but even worse (and if the DS variants were bad the 3DS ones were worse, New Nintendo 2DS XL anyone?). But historically the hits outweigh the misses, we just remember the misses more because they were fairly recent and so, so, so incredibly bad.
Yeah it's kinda recency bias, course "recent" in console lifecycles means you could be going back well over a decade for some examples. DSi was 2008! Feels like naming for everything from then up until the Switch was rough, so about 9 years of bad names. Maybe GBA SP was a precursor to the janky use of random letters, who knows. XLs made sense at least, arguably 3DS even. That seemed like an of issue of pricing and games at launch as much as branding confusion.
For Switch, going back to Super or Advance would make sense, but could totally see them choosing to leave those names in the past. One wildcard I've seen mentioned would be Ultra, a double reference as a callback to the N64's roots along with 4K/UHD hardware output capability (even if scaled, whatever).
The recent rumor mill has popped up with Muji, Ounce or OZ. The last one makes me think Nintendo Switch Z*. It's like a 2, but it's not! It's not just the next Nintendo Switch, it's the last! (Until the Nintendo Switch ∀)
*...cmon F-Zero ZX!
For the phones; I'd expect that the cadence would just be 1 a year. Or do they make 2 a year?
example: phone #2020 released in Feb, would they release a new one in Dec? Have they done that?
iPad I get as that's a 'side' offer for Apple. I'm just speaking to their main line product. N/Sony/MS don't really have side consoles (I don't consider handhelds back in the day 'side consoles' nor the XBSS). So say Sony releases a PS5 in 2020, a PS6 in 2026 (or whatever). So I'm just talking the 'main line' here and imo Apple's 'main line' is the phone.
iPhones are relative clockwork annual releases, used to be around summer time but shifted to fall releases a while back. They started numbering at 4...then kinda didn't with alternating
nS and
n releases, then went from 7 to 8 and X ("ten") simultaneously. Then some X-letter models (XS, XR) before just settling on plain numbers again at 11 and continuing on to today.
I don't see them tying to year for the reasons gregatron mentioned, it ties them to a specific time, which can be particularly bad for Apple cause they can be selling stuff for years (and of course even worse for Nintendo with their cycles). Arguably their current naming isn't great for that either, but it is at least only relative to the other numbered iPhones where they sell two generations back (15 to 13), and the latest one remains "new" even if it was released in the previous calendar year.
...then there's the SE, which comes out whenever it comes out, with the only specific identifiers being generation and year somewhere if you look for it. Pretty much like everything else Apple makes besides the iPhone and Watch, the numbering really only started with the iPhone 4. There was the "iPad 2" then "The new iPad"* then "iPad with Retina display" and just..."iPad" since then with "(
nth generation)" hidden somewhere. The older computers were similar but with release window as the hidden specific identifier, like iBook G3 (Late 2001).
With the semi irregular release timing I can understand them still obfuscating the date and numbering for everything else, like "iPad mini" sounds a lot better than "iPad mini 2021" in 2024. Even "iPhone 13 mini" still obfuscates the release date and sounds better than if it were named 2021 as well. Why yes I have those two exact products and want upgrades, and don't remind me about my Nintendo Switch 2017
. Makes things simpler but basically sucks marketing wise for long term products.
*The New iPad predated New Nintendo 3DS by a few years! Everyone is bad!
