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Nintendo's Lawsuits Aided by Fans
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."
Nintendo probably has a more loyal fan base at this time. Rather than the Record Industry pain in the butt Sony, or the Borgish I could bash them forever Microsoft. What harm has Nintendo really done to people other than sue the occasional Warez site distributing old Nintendo ROMS? People get cheap crap from these imitation game consoles, and see a Nintendo piracy hotline somewehere infuriated they give them a call...
...in bed
Music fans reporting file sharers.
I'm convinced that as a brandname, Nintendo has the most loyal following of any corporation in existence today.
This is a multinational company that can sustain profitability by selling ONLY to their fans.
Despite how often we trash the RIAA etc. for their (misguided) attempts to defend copyrights, this just proves that if you treat your customers well and produce quality products, you'll be paid back. I'da turned 'em in too. Rock on Nintendo.
There was a "toys and games" shop that opened near my house, i thought nothing of it untill my friend said they were selling SNES games for $2 for any game, buy 2, get 2 free. so i headed down there. turns out they were selling counterfeit systems all the way up to the N64, and every game you could think of... I emailed nintendo, and got an amusing thank you note..
I probably helps that nintendo has been seen (as far as I know) as a company that has had a long long history of being a rather "good", innovative, and untainted (compared to it's counterparts). I personally like nintendo, regardless of what others say.
This isn't about gamecube piracy, this is about these cheesy import deals that look like N64 controllers, and plug directly into your AV jacks (like all those Atari deals), and have a bunch of old nintendo games built in.
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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I remember that when the HL2 source code was leaked, Gabe Newell (VALVe founder) sent out a request to the HL community. 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
StrayByte.Net
There are Kiosks here in the Virginia Beach, Virginia area as well. It looked like the games are all original NES games. This is similiar to the Atari classics self contained joystick sold thru places like Walmart? Are the Atari 2600 games licensed in those console systems?
I think it is funny that they started remaking Mr. Pac-Mac/Galaga arcade games. I guess they had to update the hardware+software since the original arcade couldn't be set to accept 50 cents per play. Bastards.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
I think any company should have a right to enforce their own IP. I'd even support the RIAA/MPAA if they cracked down on marketstalls or websites profiteering from the distribution. Sadly they also abuse their consumers, and I think thats going too far.
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.
Almost unconsciously, I have categorized nearly all brand names I know into one of two categories: those I imagine to be supported by die hard, underdog loving fans and those embraced by the conformist, top of the game crowd. Although I realize that some of these associations are flat out absurd, they sit in my mind as such, nonetheless. I am curious if others have the same type of relationships in the back of their minds:
y (and more recently, Microsoft)a mp(rip):WiMP
*Apple:Microsoft
*Linux:Windows
*Nintendo:Son
*Armadillo Aerospace:Scaled Composites
*Blizzard:Valve
*Mozilla:Internet Explorer
*Texas Instruments:Hewlett Packard (despite TI's market hold)
*Star Trek:Star Wars
*Archos:Apple
*Find-a-drug:Seti@home
*Win
I wonder how much of this is my personal bias and how much is a result of clever advertising. Clearly, some of these comparisons are not legitimate or accurate, but the vast majority are. Regardless, those are the pairs I imagine. It's the fans of those things on the left that I feel would go out of their way for their cause.
I'm sure I will get modded down for this, but I honestly don't think "pirating" classic NES games, which are up to 20 years old now, is that wrong. Nintendo made a lot of money off the NES, but at this point the market for the classic Mario and Donkey Kong games is limitied to the nostalgic crowd, most of whom legitmately bought the games when they were kids. Why should we have to shell out 20 bucks for a game that we not only already bought, but that pales in comparison to newer games regarding programming time and complexity? In my opinion, these old games should be freely given to the community who made Nintendo what it is today instead of whored out by the marketing department of Nintendo to squeeze the last few cents out of them.
Umm.. I call bullshit. I have been living (and gaming) in China for 3 years, and have yet to see the product you mention above. A knock-off GC??? The hardware is so proprietary it would cost them more to make a pirated version than to sell the official one, which sells here for just a bit more than the RRP overseas (1200 RMB). If they modded an original and put it in a pretty clear case I could understand. But as far as hardware goes, the only pirated consoles available are the 8-bit NES preloaded with hundreds of games. Maybe you could post some pics of the machine you claimed to have seen? It would send shockwaves through the hacking scene, because it seems not even the hardcore hackers have ever seen one of your fabled consoles.
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
You saw the Panasonic Q, which is perfectly legal. Take a looky at lik-sang, I think they still have them.
I was one of the "400 loyal fans"... ... except I'm not really a loyal fan. They lost me to the dark side (Sega) after their stubborness over CDs. Sure, I like their games, but I haven't really been a Nintendo fan since the SNES.
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.
Have you been living in a cave?! Polystation is
a very famous brand! Just like Panaphonics,
Magnetbox, and Sorny!
We're always told how America is the Land of the Free Market and Government Regulation is a Bad Thing. Yet the instant someone tries practising free-market economics for real over there, they're suddenly evil. What the hell difference is there between this type of counterfeiting, and what every supermarket is doing with its "own brand" copies of bestselling goods anyway? Isn't Tesco Rich Blend Instant Coffee just counterfeit Nescafé? Aren't Sainsbury's Rice Pops just counterfeit Kellogg's Rice Krispies? What's the freakin' difference already?
Joe Punter isn't going to be fooled for one minute into believing this sort of thing is endorsed by Nintendo. Nor, at that price, is he going to be bothered whether it is or not. All it has to do is keep the kids entertained for longer than they will take to break it. Realness isn't part of the equation. And if some third party can satisfy the relevant factors, then they're going to be the ones that get the money. Pure and simple.
It's the same thing with the obviously fake designer clothing sold on market stalls, and those awful fake Rolex watches you can spot a mile off {hint: a real Rolex does not go around in jerks. Just on the wrists of jerks}. Nobody's expecting it to be real, and nobody's disappointed that it isn't.
You know, just maybe if perhaps "official" stuff wasn't so overpriced, there might be a chance that people perhaps wouldn't feel so much of an urge to counterfeit it, possibly. It's all very well to say that if you're poor and have principles, you should do without; and I should know all there is to know about doing without. But while there are all these big rich corporations wanting to eat their cake and have it*, while simultaneously shoving it in your face that if you don't have foo you're obviously a loser, what the hell kind of example is that setting?
* I just think it sounds better that way around.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I called today (with my own report), and the guy I talked to said they'd also been getting calls from people who had bought them and wanted some support.
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.
The PS1 *WAS* going to be a Nintendo console. It was a Sony-developed add-on for the SNES. When SEGA's CD system failed, Nintendo rethought it and told Sony they didn't want it anymore. Sony had to do something with this CD-based system, so they turned it into a standalone console and released it.
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