simfamSP wrote...
If we don't call it ME4 (which I think most people do out of convenience) then what do we call it? "NEMEG?"
New Mass Effect Game? 0.O
People can call it Purple Xylophone if they want

I'd go with "next Mass Effect".
I agree with Chris that it does the next game a disservice by unnecessarily tying it with Shepard's trilogy, but more than that, using it constantly builds up expectations and assumptions that the next game simply won't meet.
You've all seen the forum threads wondering about how "ME4 will use our ending choices" or how "Bioware will need to make a canon ending to start ME4 with", or "Shepard's new adventures in ME4". None of those are necessarily ever going to happen, especially if Shepard isn't going to be the proagonist. The longer fans don't realise Montreal isn't actually making a sequel to ME3, the more their expectations build for something that will never happen.
Hypothetically if the next game is announced at E3 next year with a subtitle ("Mass Effect: Xylophones") and it's a prequel set in 2170 based on a different crew entirely, how will confused fans talking about "ME4" for over a year help at all? At best it's going to mean thousands of people on the BSN completely waste more of their time speculating on something that was never going to happen in the first place. At worst people are going to be annoyed at Bioware "for not making ME4" when it was announced, right just now, that making ME4 isn't what thei're going to do.
All I'm saying is: more clarity about what the next Mass Effect game is would go a long way to shutting down a lot of the more unrealistic expectations - and calling it Mass Effect 4 isn't helping that.