A title can be considered many things. A title can be a summation, of content and ability. A title can be a snapshot of the bigger picture portioned away into metonymy. Titles can even be stylish. What is their purpose though? Why do they exist? While etymology is its own field of study, its sufficient to say that titles exist to inform. They exist to let us know of what is present, regardless of the presentation’s qualities or true nature.
The worst titles are the ones that have nothing to do with what is pres
ented. These titles can be interpreted as cruel jokes–much like the bastard children of Casanova. More often than not, the circumstances in which you find a bad title are the cases in which the namer, through their own juvenile intellectual retardation, see it as humorous to create names to confuse or disorient those viewing said presentation.
I digress. As gamers, we are all drawing closer to the beginning of 2012. It’s going to be a momentous year–several AAA titles will have just been released, Intel will be announcing a new chipset (for you PC gamers out there), and above all else, the new consoles are rolling out. We might as well change the dates of Christmas so that our paychecks coordinate with the emergence of all of this powerful new technology.
The new consoles are no joke. Each and every gamer has to take console releases seriously. The next generation of consoles will define how we play our games–our social interactions, our purchases, our love lives–all of these things depend on the next console. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear any solidified details as to what Microsoft and Sony are offering, and yet rumors and vague hints run rampant among the internet.
One thing that has taken form out of this is a name. For Microsoft fans everywhere, it has seemingly become acceptable and commonplace to refer to their new console offering as the Xbox 720. Am I interpreting this correctly? Are you making a joke out of the old Microsoft console, the Xbox 360? Going so far to imply that instead of making a traditional 360 degree turn in a geometric plane, you are in fact making twice that number? My God, it’s genius.
Let’s take a look at the basic semantics of what’s being said here. Instead of the Xbox 360 going once around, its going twice. Is that supposed to imply technological advancement or innovation? Is what we are to expect from our gaming lifestyle simply another rotation of itself?
Of course you are asking, “Why do you care? It’s just a name, and a fan-made one at that.”
Frankly, it’s much more than that. Names can shape thought, conceptualization, and interpretation. Out of all the possible offerings for something as meaningful and important as successor to the Xbox 360, we were given something with twice the name and half the effort.
If this were to be an official name, I would think that Microsoft were becoming flat-out lazy. I would think that they were trying to give me a console with twice the name and half the effort. I’d also be inclined to ask as to whether Microsoft HR had fired the entirety of their copy editors.
Back in the day, the Console Revolution was important. Each time a console was released, something genuinely new and ground-shaking was being developed. The original Xbox was the first console to have a hard disk. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 were the first consoles to be viewed in high-definition. These technological achievements are taken for granted nowadays, but that doesn’t change the fact that back then, each and every word spent describing it was dripping wet with the pure significance of something special–something special.
Microsoft chose Xbox 360 for several reasons, I’m sure. However, I’m fairly positive that by choosing that name they wanted to claim that they had gone full circle, and as result reached a higher level of existence–a higher level of sophisticated entertainment that they were about to share with us all.
The “Xbox 720″, as it is so brusquely referred to, is a deceit unto itself. It is a pustule, swollen and inflamed off of the idiocy of those that don’t understand the use of eloquence and decided to name something as a joke. Apparently Casanova’s children were born with something left over, as well.
It’s a sad thing, really. The name has become integrated into the stream of information surrounding the latest console releases, and I’d go so far as to say that it’s hindering what we are expecting of it. When you see the words Xbox 720, it’s not anything to be excited over. It’s simply another rumor, another machination of the fan’s whimsy and desire.
At the very least, Microsoft should name its successor. Such an act would change the shape of expectations, and change the fundamental form of what aesthetics were to come.
Put more practically, they could certainly choose something more pleasing to the ear. So many futuristic sounding terms start with the letter X these days, they’d damn well not waste their ingenuity as something as pitiful as a simple manipulation of arithmetic.
