Word has been spiraling around the Internet that Nintendo has filed for new trademarks (or patents; the story changes with each website it hits) for a bunch of new terms related to the Wii. I followed the maze of links back to what seems to be the source for this news, and of course it's in German. Rumors are born whenever new gaming news is presented in a language other than English. Let's turn to Google's translation service to get an English translation, shall we?
Nintendo let protect new label names with the Japanese patent office. Some to 26.05.06 was already registered in the USA (e.g. WiiActive24 and WiiAlive24), therefore only the new ones in the overview: WiiPointer, WiiCulture, and !!M.
No wonder this story has mutated so much as it travels along. Everyone who touches this story seems to speculate that WiiPointer is related to the freehand controller or an onscreen mouse pointer and that WiiCulture has something to do with either an online hub or a new Nintendo fan club. As long as we're just speculating wildly I'll toss in my two cents that these new names are for products we've already seen. We'll probably all look back and laugh at this idea in six months, but I'm going to brazenly declare that "WiiPointer" is the official name for the Wii's Zapper prototype that was on display at E3 (because Nintendo can't expect to call it anything related to a gun and expect to pass soccer mom muster) and that WiiCulture is the name of the Wii's "retro" gamepad (because it brings together many years worth of gaming culture from different consoles). Now, go forth and twist this story far and wide once more!
