There has been tremendous speculation among the video gaming community as to the status of Sega's next system for the console market. One major point of contention surrounds rumors of that system's name. Quite a few names have been bandied about, some from 'inside sources' and others just wildly hoped for or imagined by Sega fans. A few dedicated fans have decided to refer to 'Sega's Next System' as simply 'SNS', in posts to various bulletin boards. I for one have no official insight whatsoever as to Sega's plans. I would like to offer a few speculative notions regarding the subject though. So just for fun, let's explore the possibilities inherent to naming a new video game system for Sega.
KATANA is the name most often used to refer to Sega's next system these days. At least one website, The Katana-Edge, has wholly adopted this name as fact, even including a trademark notice giving ownership of the term to Sega! No one knows exactly why this name was chosen by Sega Enterprises, if at all, but we can hazard a guess or two. Most believe Sega's next system will offer the finest, most 'cutting edge' technology available to consumers in a video game console when it is released. So as a marketing ploy, the system itself would be named after an edged weapon. Specifically, the KATANA, since this is a traditional sword used in ceremony and battle by Japanese warlords and their samurai since feudal times. With this idea in mind, you might expect an obvious marketing campaign that announced, "Sega KATANA, Beyond the Bleeding Edge", or something to that effect. Hence, each of the KATANA logo concepts I have drawn uses the color red as a prominent accent along the lower edge of the letters. Perhaps to signify the blood, sweat and tears shed by Sega of America in the wake of the Saturn? Maybe. Doubtless though, there will be parents groups and the like that take offense to a 'child's toy' being named after a weapon of any sort. So, I'd be very surprised to see the name KATANA on Sega's final product in the US.
Once upon a time there was immense hope that Sega would release a graphical hardware upgrade to the Saturn. That upgrade never appeared, but was rumored to be called the ECLIPSE for some time. Eventually some people became convinced that ECLIPSE would actually be the name of the successor to Sega's Saturn. In fact, the Sega specific website Eclipse Gaming was founded in anticipation of such an event. I thought it was intriguing that their staff saw the last two letters of 'Eclipse' and the first two letters of 'Gaming' spell 'SEGA'! There are certain parrallels between this proposed system name and that of the Sega Saturn. As the Saturn was named after a planet, an ECLIPSE is an event of the skies. The Saturn shared its name with that of a car company, and Mitsubishi offers a sporty coupe called - ECLIPSE. Also take note that the ECLIPSE icon I created loosely resembles both the event horizon and the letter 'E'. That is similar to the stylized 'S' wrapped around an orb to denote the Saturn emblem. Though all this makes for a neat name and logo, some might not be encouraged by Sega placing their hopes on representations of heavenly bodies once more with their next system.
One of many rumored names for Sega's next system has been DURAL, after the boss character from Sega's 'Virtua Fighter' series. I have never been too happy with the name DURAL, so I'd prefer Sega used the name VIRTUA instead for their next system. The future of gaming appears to be increasingly reliant upon polygonal graphics and Sega's first games in this arena bore the names 'Virtua Racing', 'Virtua Fighter' and 'Virtua Cop'. VIRTUA is a name already synonomous with Sega and is already their property. Sega needs a brand that will allow an advantage for name recognition of their games and their system - VIRTUA should work fine in this respect. Just as Nintendo places the label 'SUPER' on SNES games and '64' on Nintendo64 games, Sega could market all games as part of the VIRTUA franchise. Imagine 'Virtua Racing 2', 'Virtua Fighter 3', 'Virtua Cop 3', 'Virtua Shinobi', 'Virtua Sonic' and 'Virtua Phantasy Star' filling store shelves. Sega might also offer first-party sports titles like 'Virtua NFL Primetime 99', 'Virtua NBA Action 99', 'Virtua World Series Baseball 99', 'Virtua NBA Action 99', and 'Virtua World Cup Soccer 99'. Perhaps even third parties could join in with 'Virtua Street Fighter', 'Virtua Resident Evil', 'Virtua Megaman', 'Virtua Strider', 'Virtua Contra', 'Virtua Castlevania', 'Virtua Star Wars' and even... 'Virtua TEKKEN'! (Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?)
There's plenty of other ideas for a new system name that I think could work for Sega. PHOENIX would be nice, to show Sega's intent to rise from the ashes of destruction. MILLENIUM is a good choice, showing that Sega is looking toward the future. LEGACY sounds like a hopeful opportunity for Sega to leave a mark for posterity. NEOGENESIS could signal a return to good times for Sega, if people didn't mistake the name for NEO*GEO instead. EXODUS might also make a favorable followup to the Genesis, or a suitable path of flight from the home console market should Sega fail once more. In the end it really isn't as easy to name a video game system as one might think. All that matters to me is that Sega's next system has games that I want to play and can enjoy. If that happens I'll surely purchase it, no matter the name it bears.