Nintendo's Lawsuits Aided by Fans 402
Guppy06 writes "Last week there was a posting about Nintendo's efforts to crack down on people selling counterfeit Nintendo hardware and software, and there was at least one reply from a guy who reported someone to Nintendo. It turns out he's not alone; according to a posting at Nintendorks, NOA's Jodi Daugherty, their director of anti-piracy efforts, says it was helped by over 400 people reporting such kiosks to them."
Thats what you get when.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Glad to see Nintendo doing something about this (Score:1, Interesting)
Are all those things garbage? (Score:4, Interesting)
You guys don't really get this (Score:5, Interesting)
They sell 'em everywhere, go to any flea market and you can find them. They're as flimsily built as you can imagine. There's a light gun too, for Duck Hunt.
I believe they just have an image of the old 100-in-one NES bootleg from the olden days.
Anyways, they're no doubt illegal. But we're talking about Kid Icarus and Duck Hunt, not Metroid Prime and Resident Evil Zero.
Re:Not surprising really... (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed, Nintendo had a grip on home consoles in the 80s that would make Microsoft weep. Granted a grasp that was finally loosened by numerous law suits.
A more loyal fanbase? certainly, but only at the cost of so many million more PS2s and Xboxes.
More and more common? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember that when the HL2 source code was leaked, Gabe Newell (VALVe founder) sent out a request to the HL community [halflife2.net]. It worked. Pretty soon, they managed to get a few leads and tracked down the guy who initially distributed it. Best part was, all this happened over IRC rooms when some guy started boasting about his exploits.
This is setting a very positive trend, IMO. (Besides showing that IRC is not *just* the home of the pirates and the script kiddies :) It shows that the community will back a game publisher/developer who gives them quality stuff, and is willing to pull down shitty publishers like EA.
Anyway... long story short, this is Very Good(TM). I hope this continues
Rewards (Score:3, Interesting)
why the opposite copyright stance, slashdot (Score:1, Interesting)
i see this 'enforcement' as yet again an abuse of copyright law. copyright is there to promote the public interest. nintendo's interest has long since passed on these games in their original NES form. what this 'knockoff' company has done is take something that nintendo has made plenty of profits on during the day, and added a key innovation (small controller, cute packaging, gimmick, whatever) where there is a new spark. the 'pirates' are really the innovaters here, nintendos old 8 bit games should have long since passed into the public domain.
don't be so quick to defend copyrights in this case because its about a video game and not a music company
Go Nintendo! (Score:4, Interesting)
Nintendo is doing nothing less than protecting its rights, and in a far more amicable way than some of the other corporations. Sure the emulation scene has been blasted by lawyers over the years. Although, considering they are still making a profit from the old games (classic handhelds etc) do you really blame them?
Systems to support this would be the Classic NES and snes converstions to the GBA
*** (I'm not suggesting constant remakes and re-releases is right either here btw ) ***
People are slating that guy in the link because he was miffed at recieving a counterfit product. I have to say I support him 100% for taking it back.
WE ALL know counterfit copies exist, some of us are even quite prepared to buy them *knowing* they are fake/stolen but not wanting to pay full price. It's a totally different story when a shop tries to sell such products and pretend they are legit.
how would you like to buy a $60,000 Rolex to find a quartz movement inside? OR a an athlon64 4000 to find its an overclocked 3800?
I think then, you might not be so jeering when it was you that had the wrong end of the stick.
Re:Piracy in China (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:why the opposite copyright stance, slashdot (Score:1, Interesting)
Nintendo still sells the NES games repackaged for the GBA/GBA SP today and includes the games as extras in GameCube games such as Animal Crossing. Looks to me like not only is there public interest in these old gems, Nintendo seems to be pretty interested in them as well.
And yes, GBA/GBA SP is smaller than this "key innovation".
Re:Something you won't see... (Score:2, Interesting)
I disagree. Exact DVD copies are all over Emule and Bittorrent. Check out Suprnova [suprnova.org]. Right now there are two dvd iso torrents on the front page, and countless more on the movies page. It's becoming feasable to send uncompressed DVDs around the internet. Granted this cannot be done with movies that are newly out, but it's pretty scary fron the movie industry's viewpoint that even a casual pirate can reproduce exactly what they're selling - for free.
Why I reported them (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few reasons I reported them. First, some of those games aren't abandonware. Nintendo is actively re-releasing them for the Gameboy Advance. Second, they're competing unfairly with Nintendo. The kiosk I reported was just outside an Electionics Boutique, and I suspect a fair number of parents that were asked for a Nintendo system for Christmas saw this as a deal, and got that instead of a real system. Third, they're unfairly profiting from Nintendo's IP. They were selling these devices for nearly $70! And finally, they were extremely pushy, and used high-pressure sales tactics on anyone who passed by their kiosk.
I think emulators are perfectly legal, and trading old ROMs doesn't really hurt their bottom line, but this was wholesale abuse of their IP.
Taking out the garbage is good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, I've seen those. (Score:2, Interesting)
The particular one I've seen for sale is called "Power Player." It boasts of an image of the lighsaber duel from "The Phantom Menace." Quick, someone call George Lucas.
So then, what other rip-offs of Nintendo games are out there?
Re:You guys don't really get this (Score:2, Interesting)
I've always wondered if this is legal, and whether they license the tech from nintendo. From your post, it doesn't seem to be above board. Which I find surprising, seeing as they run infomercials on national TV.
Re: Wrong mistake... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:prison labor to boot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Something you won't see... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real reason people don't blow the whistle on music sharing is because CDs are overpriced due to the RIAA oligopoly.
Not piracy but... (Score:3, Interesting)
They're not _all_ just pirated ROMs... (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems not all the ROMs are complete. Some give up after a certain level, so you can't finish the game. As a result, Nintendo is getting calls.
Considering it costs money to keep people on the phones, and they're getting calls for something that isn't actually theirs, yeah, I can see how they'd be losing money on these things even if they weren't rereleasing some of the games.
Re: Wrong mistake... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not surprising really... (Score:3, Interesting)
Counterfit or not, it was a great idea! A nintendo the size of a controller that had all those old games loaded on it. Good product, its really too bad that the legitimate companies like nintendo didn't come up with the idea themselves. It would be a great way to give people a product that they would think is really cool and buy (there would be no issue here if nobody was buying them, the counterfiters would just go out of buisness on their own).
So instead of using their old products to make a little more cash by giving people a cool new toy, they spend money going after the people who are doing it.
-Steve
Re:Are all those things garbage? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if the systems might be running in PAL mode internally, but hacked to output an NTSC-compatible signal. Running a system designed for 50Hz at 60Hz would result in the games being 20% too fast.
Another legally notable thing about many of the designs is that the lightguns they come with are VERY realistic looking, and almost certainly qualify as illegal imitation firearms in several states.
My Personal Experiences... (Score:3, Interesting)