What’s in a name? With rumours flying around the launch of a new Nintendo console, we’ve trawled the archives for some of the finest, most evocative and downright entertaining codenames gadgets have been christened with before launch. Read on to meet them and their secret identities.
Microsoft Xenon
While Xenon is the name of the IBM processor inside the Xbox 360, it was also the codename Microsofties used to talk about their second generation home console. The company even had an internal document known as “The Book of Xenon” outlining the company’s strategy for it.
Apple M68
Apple goes in for much more mundane codenames than its competitors, sticking to a series of three or four character alter egos that bear no logical connection to product type, to keep gadget hounds off the scent. The M68 is perhaps the most significant of them all however: it’s the original 2007 iPhone, which helped usher in a new era of smartphone hegemony, and turned the company in to arguably the biggest mobile devices manufacturer in the world.
HTC Pyramid
HTC loves a codename that conjures up an air of mystique (HTC Passion, Supersonic, Huangshan to name but a few), and the HTC Pyramid was the most tantalising of them all – with a name like that, it had to be epic. And it is: it’s the HTC Sensation, the first phone from the company with a dual core processor and pin sharp qHD screen.
HTC Sensation: 10 reasons it’s your video hero
BlackBerry Talladega
RIM loves dreaming up catchy codenames for its emailers – there’s not a lot to do in Waterloo of an evening, see. As well as the BlackBerry Driftwood, Onyx and Magnum, last year saw the heavy leaking of the awesomely named BlackBerry Talladega. What a touchscreen sliding smartphone with a portrait QWERTY keyboard has to do with a city in Alabama, we don’t know, but it’s catchy, no? Shame about the BlackBerry Torch itself.
HP Topaz
A topaz is a precious stone, which is probably quite an apt way to describe the HP TouchPad itself and its beautiful pebble design. Word of the shiny codename for the 9.7-inch webOS tablet first broke in December 2010, before HP smothered Palm’s branding in February at the official launch of the slate. It’s still not on sale, sadly, but it’s still one of the most promising devices coming this year.
Check out our best gadgets of 2011 right here
Nintendo Revolution
While mobile manufacturers rarely release the internal codenames of their smartphones, console makers are happy to have their codenames bandied around in the press for years. The Nintendo Wii was known publicly as the Revolution for a full year after its launch at E3 in May 2005. In the case of the Wii, we’d say the codename has a much better ring to it than the final name.
Project Natal
Likewise, Microsoft was happy to give its motion sensing camera peripheral for the the Xbox 360 a placeholder name while it tossed around ideas. Kinect was known as Project Natal between June 2009 and 2010, named after the Brazilian birthplace of the gadget’s pioneer, Alex Klipman.
Microsoft Project Pink
Microsoft snaffled up Sidekick creator Danger in early 2008, and for years afterwards, rumours of a “Project Pink” phone flew around. Was it a Windows Mobile overhaul? Nope: it was two phones aimed at tweens, the Kin One and Kin Two. It wasn’t exactly the best of codenames to start with, and the products themselves bombed spectacularly, with Microsoft pulling support and cancelling a European rollout just months after launch.
Sega Katana
Love it or hate it, Sega’s last console had a bad ass codename when it was first revealed way back in 1997. It actually wasn’t the only one however: Sega briefed two teams to come up with a Sega Saturn follow up, with the other competing model going under the name Black Belt.
Samsung Seine
Question: what does a river running through the French capital have to do with a South Korean dual-core smartphone? Answer: we have no idea, but when the phone in question is the Samsung Galaxy S 2, does it really matter? Just be grateful that they didn’t hamper it with an awful launch name like the Samsung Preston. Poor Preston.
Everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S 2
HP Stingray
A touchscreen only webOS phone has long been rumoured, and appears to exist under the codename of HP Stingray. When we’ll see it on sale is another matter entirely.
Sony NGP
Well, we know what it looks like, and that NGP stands for next generation portable. As to the moniker the “PSP 2″ will actually sport when it goes on sale before Christmas, only Sony knows right now.
Nintendo Project Cafe
Recent reports have pegged Nintendo’s next home console for a big unveiling at E3 in June, and word on the web/street is that it’s a HD machine under the codename Project Cafe – potentially, with touchscreen tablet controllers.
