When Nintendo first announced its follow-up to the GameCube with the code name “Revolution,” it got fans really hyped. However, when it received its final name of “Wii,” fans were initially baffled by it. Some are still baffled by it, 101 million units later. Nonetheless, Wii became an iconic and, yes, revolutionary piece of video game history, and we all still have a mental image of the simple Wii logo in our heads. So it might be surprising to find that Nintendo considered way more outlandish variants of the Wii logo than that — dozens of them, in fact. Twitter user Nintendo Memories has shared images of unused logos from Nintendo’s 2007 company handbook, so we can get a closer look at just how many other possibilities were on the table.
Nintendo #Wii tentative logos from the NCL 2007 Company Book.
"Wii beginning new era" ?
Nintendo Weiird ? pic.twitter.com/uKGqC31DAM— Nintendo Memories (@NintendoMemo) January 27, 2021
It’s wild to see how many different styles Nintendo designers tried. Some versions of the Wii logo look like musical notes. Some look like a crown. Some look like space alien text. Heck, one of them basically looks like a squashed Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars, and I’d love to hear the story behind that one.
Which one of these many potential variant logos is your favorite? I’m having a hard time deciding.