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Nintendo Faces Continuation Of Seizure Lawsuit
Thanks to 2TheAdvocate for its article discussing a lawsuit against Nintendo regarding their videogames causing seizures. The suit, which has been in progress since July 2003, claims that Nintendo "failed to report that its games contain defects that presented a 'substantial hazard' and create an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death." In Nintendo's defence, they claim that they "instituted some recommendations... [including] a limit on the number of times per second a light can flash, and a limit on the brightness of certain lights and their duration on the screen." As a result, "the number of seizures reported to the company by consumers has dropped from 22 in 1999 to six in 2003." The trial will continue until later this month.
And how was Nintendo expected to know that there games presented a miniscule risk of causing epilepting seizures??? I mean, that's not a normal part of the debugging process is it (buffer overruns fixed - check!, memory leak fixed - check!, doesn't cause seizures - "we'll just slip this one under the rug). Should Nintendo be expected to hire a panel of 1000 seizure prone patients to test the game? And the number one question is : Why aren't manufacturers of strobe lights being sued???
Frankly, I feel failed by our benevolent friends whose corporate headquarters is located it Kyoto, Japan.
Clearly, they need to translate the "Battling Seizure Robots" video game adaptation so that North American children can share in the joy that is le petit mal!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Japanese Seizure Robots!
(Don't click if you really get seizures!)
Nobody reads instruction manuals, maybe Nintendo should repeatedly flash a big bright RTFM at the start of every game as a gentle reminder.
Upcoming court cases against Nintendo:
"I nearly choked on my Zelda disk - Nintendo knew those things are dangerously small"
"My son was so excited at completing Super Mario Sunshine he had a heart attack. Nintendo should put "calm down" messages on the sceen"
This is like 0.00001% (6/50+ million?) of users and there have been clear warnings since forever.
they get some sort of rare seizure than causes them to sue the next thing they see... a nintendo game in this case.
"This game is great!!"
(cue strobe effect)
"gahhhhhhh..(twitch).. SUE! I'll SUE those bastards for every cent they've got!!"
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Nintendo should repeatedly flash a big bright RTFM
At approximately 2Hz, right?
Right below the RTFM they could put a warning like 'If you can't read this without getting a seizure, you shouldn't be playing any games on this system'