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."
Probably the biggest... (Score:5, Informative)
This is a multinational company that can sustain profitability by selling ONLY to their fans.
They might mean by design, but the not contents. (Score:2, Informative)
How nice of them to keep the PS box with its advertisements for playstation games. It even has a flyer that advertiess NES/Famicoms in the shapes of a Genesis, SNES, N64, NeoGeo?(I think, I can't quite tell), and the different versions of the same consoles(i.e Genesis version II).
So I can see them making a GameCube shaped pirate Famicom/Nes if they haven't already.
Re:Piracy in China (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Something you won't see... (Score:5, Informative)
Not much there, but its about you're only bet for legit emulation on a computer.
Re:Yes, but if Suicide Girls ever got a hold of th (Score:3, Informative)
Ehhh... it depends. Two years ago, as was all over Slashdot, Nintendo was among the companies that went after Lik Sang, particularly for selling Flash Advance Linkers that could download and upload GBA roms. I also remember the hooplah over UltraHLE, an N64 emulator that was released when the N64 was still current. All in all, though, it seems Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts have been pretty low-key, at least where obsolete consoles are concerned.
They could do some of the same things the RIAA and MPAA are doing, for the same reasons; ROMs aren't as prevalent in P2P networks as music and movies, but they are out there. They could hassle the folks who write ZSNES and Snes9x. They could try hunting down those few crackers who actually dumped those NES carts and transferred them to a PC (it's not like they could have just used their Super Wild Card or the Flash Advance Linker). But from what I've seen they aren't.
It's almost as if, so long as money isn't changing hands, Nintendo (if not the console gaming industry in general) has something of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Consider the EarthBound "Zero" ROM [slashdot.org]. We have every reason to believe there is only copy of the (development) cartridge out in the wild. Money was paid to the person who owned the cartridge for the express purpose of dumping the image and putting it on the internet. And the Slashdot article I just linked to is about an interview with a Nintendo employee about whether the ROM is really the unreleased US version of Mother or just a fan translation of the Japanese version. And yet, to my knowledge, Nintendo's legal arm hasn't made a peep about the entire episode.
Nintendo has been listening (Score:2, Informative)
Nintendo has been listening to it's fans. If you are interested in the new GameCube Zelda game, you have to check out this trailer [ign.com], it's completely amazing, but I think it hasn't received enough attention because it was overshadowed by the DS at E3.
Re:Something you won't see... (Score:3, Informative)
If I can infiltrate your bank's computer system, substract 1000 from the number saying how much you got in your account, and add 1000 from the number saying how much I got in my account, I didn't take any physical good from you, but did I just steal from you?