calganagain
Ban Hammered
Is there a definite answer as to why the Japanese(NOJ) used English to name their product(Family Computer)?
Famicom
- Thread starter calganagain
- Start date
The japanese borrow a lot of words from different languages, and it's no different with english. So a lot of japanese would understand what famicom means. On another note, most other systems in japan also use english words. Like "Mega Drive" "PC Engine" and "Playstation"
Some ideas:
- In the U.S. in the late 1980s (as I recall), there was a cartoon/toy franchise called Monster In My Pocket, and Nintendo wanted to avoid any possible confusion or lawsuits based on that.
- "Pokemon" makes it sound more Japanese, and thus was done as a marketing move to cash in on the "anime craze". This seems somewhat unlikely though, since the names of various characters and Pokemon were apparently changed to make them sound less Japanese.
- In the U.S. in the late 1980s (as I recall), there was a cartoon/toy franchise called Monster In My Pocket, and Nintendo wanted to avoid any possible confusion or lawsuits based on that.
- "Pokemon" makes it sound more Japanese, and thus was done as a marketing move to cash in on the "anime craze". This seems somewhat unlikely though, since the names of various characters and Pokemon were apparently changed to make them sound less Japanese.
