Wal-Mart's Terrible Nintendo Wii Knock-Offs

MaryAlan writes "Wal-Mart is now selling an electronic LCD game in the kid's section that resembles a Wiimote so closely that even Wal-Mart employees can't tell them apart in a picture. But the games — made by ToyQuest out of L.A. — are complete and utter crap, to the point of being unplayable. Their only redeeming feature is that they look like the Nintendo Wii, which means Wal-Mart is relying on brand confusion to sell any of these things to unsuspecting customers. There is a gallery of photos online, so you can take a look at side-by-side pictures with a true Wiimote, down to the fake speaker on the front. "

Comments

unethical

[rice_burners_suck]

I think this is a highly unethical business practice which must be stopped. It is somewhat akin to companies in China producing brand-name knock-offs that so closely resemble the original product that they can only be described as counterfeit.

The best thing to do is to take a few minutes of your time and send a short, concise, and polite letter to:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Attn: Customer Service
702 S.W. 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716

Believe me, they will notice your letter and do something about it.

Re:unethical

[aichpvee]

Three points:

1) This "story" is really OLD. It did the rounds on the Internet MONTHS ago.

2) As stupid as I'm sure a lot of walmart employees are, I have a hard time thinking even many of them would be able to confuse these two items.

3)
a. Either zonk has trouble telling the two apart and thinks this is legitimate "news."
-or-
b. zonk believes that it has already been posted on /. and is posting it again just to make a dupe.

Re:unethical

[belmolis]

If the design is sufficiently similar to the Nintendo Wii as to confuse consumers, Nintendo can sue for infringement on its trade dress. Trade dress is similar to trademark, but instead of the words of a brand name or slogan it refers to the non-functional characteristics of a product. In other words, existing law should take care of this problem.

Re:unethical

[click2005]

In North America squirt guns are not allowed to resemble real guns so they cant be used for bank robberies etc. With the shoot first interrogate later mentality of most cops nowadays its probably a good thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirt_gun

Re:unethical

[medlefsen]

I saw this in Walmart a couple weeks ago while shopping for board games and it's in a very small clear plastic package with a cardboard back. I noticed it's wii-mote like appearance from an aisle away and immediately thought "what's a wii-mote doing in this section?" It doesn't say it's a wii but it looks exactly like it (to the untrained eye at least). It's very clearly intentionally deceptive.

Re:What?

[macshome]

If you click on the images you will find the text...

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh. They don't look alike at all. S: (adj) alike, similar, like (having the same or similar characteristics)

Re:Obvious

[narcolepticjim]

Nice of you to point out GM's quality.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- For the first time in 12 years, Toyota's Lexus luxury brand has to share its top rank in J.D. Power and Associates' annual Vehicle Dependability Study.

And it has to share it with an American car.

General Motors' Buick brand tied Lexus in the study, which measures the number of problems owners experience with their cars after three years of ownership.

Re:Shit, calm down

[bladesjester]

I think you even have 90 days to do so.

You only have like 30 days for electronic stuff and some of it they won't refund if it's been opened, only replace with an identical item.

Re:Obvious

[KingSkippus]

I hope you get to +5 for that comment, because you're right on the mark. The reason why there's no huge incentive for Japanese workers to unionize is because the work culture is much different over there. I'm not saying it's necessarily better in every way, but there are reasons why U.S. workers had to unionize when they did. Working conditions were simply intolerable to the point of being inhuman, a situation they haven't had to deal with over there, thanks to a different culture and different regulations on what corporations can and can't do.

In our relentless strive for economic freedom, we've given corporations way too much power, power that corporations don't have in other countries such as Japan. As a result, we've had to, over time, develop organizations to protect ourselves from that which we have created. :-(

It's ironic that so many countries have learned lessons from us so well, lessons that we ourselves still haven't picked up on. While they're learning from our mistakes, we just keep right on making them.

WTF?

[Chysn]

I'm not sure I get why Aaron Stanton is going on a ten-page multimedia rant. So many different camera angles. So much use of the word "terrible." The thing resembles a Wii controller to the same extent that various electronic toys used to resemble Palm V PDAs. It's ten bucks, of course it's crap. Why the ten-page rant?

Re:Obvious

[tarpy]

But you've got a totally different working culture in Japan. In Japan, companies actually take some degree of responsibility for their employees. In the US, companies would be quite happy to work employees until they drop, and then serve the remains up as lunch if they thought it would make a penny a unit more profit.

Um, not really. My dad has worked for Honda of America Manufacturing's Marysville Auto Plant (Honda's US Car making arm) for 20+ years now, many of those on the line. He and all HAM (yes, that IS the unfortunate acronym for Honda of America Manufacturing...) associates get better than UAW scale wages and as good, if not better than UAW health care...as an example, when I was in college, the health plan picked up my elective PRK so I wouldn't have to wear glasses anymore...I thought that was pretty sweet.

The UAW every couple of years tries to organize at HAM, and hasn't been able to get an in...I think they think it's because management rigs the vote or coerces the associates...I think it's just a matter of economics...when you're getting a fair deal, it's hard to get worked up over union representation. I don't mean that to sound flippant...think about it, Honda's kept labor problems to a minimum by "doing the right thing" and as an added benefit doesn't have to put up with one of the most painful, short-sighted unions in America. Truly a win-win.