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

What?

[stevenvi]

Where's the article? The entire story appears to be a photo gallery. Not even a blog post of someone ranting over buying crap.

Re:What?

[macshome]

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

Re:What?

[Jarjarthejedi]

I would argue that the 3 paragraph blurb at the beginning counts for something, it's not entirely a photo gallery. On the other hand it is far too short for a normal sized article.

Re:What?

[Corwn of Amber]

It's not a story since such utter-crap games have been sold cheap in all crap "electronics shops" for ages.
1 Some scammer buys a container from China stuffed with electronic devices of which 50% work and 50% will fail in under a week.
2 Sells the stuff cheaper than shit to cheap crap stores, that will close in under a year
3 Idiots go spend $ on defective widgets
Profit!!

What's new is that it looks like a Wii. Yeah, right. In ye olden times (5 to 20 yrs ago?), crap electronics only loosely copied consoles, like, two sizes smaller. It was impossible to confuse them. Now Wal-Mart tries to make a quick buck with a practice that should be illegal (induce brand confusion). Can Nintendo attack them, ostensibly to protect their trademark? I'd love to see Wal-Mart on the ground bleeding money to death and beyond.

Re:What?

[madbawa]

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

If you click on the images you will find the text... You don't find the text, the text finds you; if you want it to.

Re:What?

[plague3106]

I own a Wii, so maybe that makes a difference. Its immediately obvious to me which one is the fake.. from any angle. Somehow I think you'd have to be a total idiot to see somethings not right with the fake on.. since the Wiimote doesn't even have a screen.

Probably the fact that it won't say Nintendo or Wii anywhere on the box should be a huge clue too. Yes, they copied the design. Is it brand confusion? Only if you're a total moron.

Re:What?

[orclevegam]

I agree to a point. The problem is, I've seen many after market Wiimotes, or Wiimote covers and accessories not manufactured by Nintendo that don't have a whole lot of identification on the boxes. In addition to this I can see a situation where someones grandmother that doesn't know an XBox360 from a PS3 walking through Walmart during the holiday rush when everyone is scrambling to grab anything they can off the shelf, seeing one of these things and thinking it looks a lot like that Wii thing their grandson has been asking for and grabbing one. In this case you have someone who isn't particularly clear on what a real Wiimote looks like, doesn't know much about the brand or what kind of packaging the item is supposed to come in, and is in a rush because everyone is going crazy trying to grab "the hot new toy" for christmas. I think it's just this sort of thing that if not Walmart, then at least the manufacturer of this particular item is counting on. The fact that they went as far as to add fake "speaker holes" to the front of this thing in an effort to make it look just that much closer to a real Wiimote shows that they're trying to scam people with this thing.

Obvious

[Nom du Keyboard]

Hey, Wal-Mart is always looking for the lowest price on items - even to the point of telling manufacturer's to make a cheaper, lower quality, unit. So they found it. Where can they go from here? A picture of a Wii in a box? (Worked on eBay for another gaming console.)

Re:Obvious

[ILuvRamen]

not even just lowest price, some of their decisions just plain evil/stupid. Have you heard the story about the whole meat issue? Ever wonder why Walmart ground beef smells, looks, feels, and tastes like some sort of rotting roadkill compared to respectable grocery stores? It's because as I understood the explanation, they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies. Don't eat Walmart meat...in fact, don't even shop there. They'll pick up any product if it's cheap and they think it will sell. Soon they're going to have way too many people with the feeling that Walmart sells 100% cheap crap products, which somehow they've been able to somewhat avoid so far.
P.S. I actually know the person who sold just a console box on ebay for retail price of a new unit cuz the bidder didn't read carefully.

Re:Obvious

[torkus]

Ok, I hate walmart as much as anyone.

That said, hating them because they don't deal with unions is utter crap. In fact, I think I've actually found a single thing I can respect them for. Yes, they sell cheap crap. Buying from a union shop just ensures you're buying overpriced cheap crap.

Re:Obvious

[xrayspx]

My wife and I pointed out an entire 8' section of the WalMart meat cooler that was at least 10 days out of code, and very brown/green/fuzzy. The employee did nothing about it and went back to what they were doing. I (in my former capacity as a supermarket employee) would have flown over there and scooped it all out, no matter what department I worked in. So would any of my coworkers. I've happily spent less than $1/year at WalMart in the last decade, but I feel that even that is too much.

Re:Obvious

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Union made products cost more because their workers are treated better and are given benefits that places like wal-mart and target avoid. The price difference between Fred Meyer and a Super Wal-mart aren't worth the actual costs to the workers.

Re:Obvious

[ILuvRamen]

hey hey hey, buying from a union shop makes it just about impossible for you to be supporting illegal immigrants working in this country for illegally low wages without paying taxes. That's a bit more important to me personally. But anyway, I don't care if they only buy form union places or only buy from non union places, if the end product is skanky beef, I'm not buying it and they shouldn't be selling it. And I don't care if all the proceeds to their wiimote ripoff goes to feeding homeless children, the product is just wrong and they shouldn't be selling it. That's called the free market.

Re:Obvious

[Planesdragon]

Buying from a union shop just ensures you're buying overpriced cheap crap.

From a strict Capitalist perspective, whether or not you purchase from a union shop should not matter at all. If it's a good value -- acceptable ratio of quality to price -- then get it. If not, don't. Unions do not add extraordinary cost to any industry where they cannot justify the increased pay by increased quality. All it takes is one alternative and the downward spiral begins, forcing the union-shop to either raise quality further or reduce price if it doesn't want to go out of business.

Yes, there are cases where union shops are no better and cost more, and there are also cases where the union shop is higher quality but no higher cost. And there are even cases where the reverse of either happens. But as a consumer, you're just being a fool if you base your capitalist decision on which shop is or isn't unionized. You might as well decide based on if the company is ran by a man or a woman.

That said...

You have a bias against unions. Great. Go to town. It's a free planet, and you can decide that unions are so distasteful that you won't buy for them unless you get X% better quality/lower price. Someone else might tack on the same premium for country of origin, or ecological sensitivity of the manufacturer, or they might even be like me and have a bias towards unions.

There's nothing wrong with a bias like this. Just don't pretend that it's anything more than it is, no matter what lies you hear from people who think they need to lie to get you to agree with them.

Re:Obvious

[zippthorne]

I quite agree. For example, union shop General Motors' cars are almost always of far superior quality and reliability compared to worker oppressing Toyota's cars in comparable categories. They might cost a little more, but you know you're getting quality and helping to fund someone's retirement.

Re:Obvious

[timmarhy]

what junk are you smoking? toyota's are FAMOUS for their reliability and quality. just take the corolla's, tough little bastards that won't die.

I think in your ignorance you are confusing korean KIA's with japanese made toyota's.

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:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh.

Re:Obvious

[Mr. Freeman]

Walmart doesn't give two shits about whether a supplier is unionized or not. They care about the price and only the price.
Unionized suppliers are more expensive because the union ensures that the company is treating them fairly (and safely when the OSHA inspector isn't around).

Re:Obvious

[Molochi]

You can't oppress a robot. At least not yet.

Re:Obvious

[hedwards]

Except that isn't actually true. It really depends on more than just unionization. Companies like Costco which pay workers far more than Sam's club don't necessarily end up paying more for workers than those that lowball the wages. I believe that after 5 years on the cash register, an employee at costco is making like 40k a year, while at Sam's club its closer to 15k(or whatever it is that minimum wage comes out to).

What people forget about is that training, lack of company pride and absenteeism are very much a cost of doing business. Shafting an employee by paying minimum wage and no benefits at all, isn't something that is forgotten. Employers that do that kind of thing, especially if they employ people for long terms, can pretty much count on the employees not caring about doing a good job and not being particularly interested in showing up.

By contrast companies that take better care of their employees frequently have reduced turn over and increased productivity which can in many cases more than compensate for a higher rate of pay.

In Walmart's case, the suits that run it are just cheap bastards with little interest in sound business principles. And yes, I do know what I'm saying on this. Walmart's profits were always based upon being able to undercut the competition through and economy of scale, with that disappearing and the rivals largely caught up the regressive employment policies are going to put them in a world of hurt. Not to even mention the municipalities that want to stop subsidizing their benefits or the fact that they are selling products that are less and less difficult to find at affordable prices elsewhere.

As a result of the generally bad attitude that the execs have towards their employees, the employee cost per square foot of retail space is much higher than it is for costco.

Re:Obvious

[rfunches]

Walmart doesn't give two shits about whether a supplier is unionized or not. They care about the price and only the price. Unionized suppliers are more expensive [...].

Ergo, Walmart does care about whether a supplier is unionized. Union == higher product price == no contract with Walmart. Even if a product generally comes from unionized suppliers, it's trivial for Walmart to find a non-union supplier -- there are lots of suppliers ready to fight each other for a Walmart contract.

Re:Obvious

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

Unions do not add extraordinary cost to any industry where they cannot justify the increased pay by increased quality. All it takes is one alternative and the downward spiral begins, forcing the union-shop to either raise quality further or reduce price if it doesn't want to go out of business. Unless that industry is government... The employer can raise their income to pay for expense increases at any time they want to without ever having to worry about whether or not they're running efficiently and/or utterly failing at their jobs. See the teachers' unions strong opposition to any competition (say, by vouchers) even though the state of education in the US is abysmal despite doubling spending since 1991. Alas, their jobs are generally secured for life, they get great benefits and their pay grows far faster than inflation (at least in NY) so they don't want to risk competition even if it means the kids continue to fail.

Re:Obvious

[fermion]

This is rather simplistic. Workers can only do what the engineers design, and engineers can only design what management lets them. When management is concerned primrily with cooking books to fabricate maximum profit to create maximum bonuses, very little of quality get designed. I have seen america companies compete with offshore interests. It takes dedication of the management to not maximize personal compensation, and to pay workers well, either through union efforts or out of enlightened self interest. Turnover is detrimental to quality. Lack of innovation is detrimental to quality. Keeping non productive workers on staff, either on the floor or in the offices, is detrimental to quality.

Quality does not happen by accident. It must be designed, and it must be balanced with materials, time, and other costs. One thing american manufacturers did in the late 60's and 70's to really fuck themselves was not pay to design quality. The anti-intellectualism, that the egg heads had nothing to contribute, lead to some very bad choices. Sure, part of this was unions trying to keep thier members employed, but that is what they do, just like management tries to hire workers at the lowest rate, even if that means the worker cannot feed their family. That is the way it goes. But one can hardly blame the worker that is told to build a 15 mpg car with a year warrenty instead of a 25 mpg car with a 3 year warranty. That is clearly a management decision. It reminds me of my management time. It was often best when I could delivery not what internal or external customer thought they wanted, but what they actually needed.

Re:Obvious

[Kadin2048]

buying from a union shop makes it just about impossible for you to be supporting illegal immigrants working in this country for illegally low wages without paying taxes

If buying from a union shop was a guarantee that you weren't supporting illegal labor, I'd be a lot more inclined to buy union. But it isn't, and in fact quite a few of the unions are involved in legalization schemes because they think all the illegal workers will increase their political clout, if they can get them unionized.

In effect, the union organizations are selling out their rank-and-file (who are the ones who really get hit by the wage depression as a result of all the illegal workers) in order to bring in lots of new members and make themselves more powerful. I've seen this to most obvious effect in the unions that have gotten involved in the service industries, but it's pretty widespread if you look for it. Very few of the unions seemed to be putting up much of a fight when push came to shove earlier this year on the immigration issue.

At least the corporations generally are upfront about screwing you; the union leaders seem to enjoy pretending that they're on the side of legitimate workers while doing the same thing.

Re:Obvious

[udippel]

they don't want to risk competition even if it means the kids continue to fail.

Ahh, I get what you say, maybe. Competition will avoid kids failing. Isn't it ?
Question is, what you define as 'fail': not getting a pass grade or failing in life.
In case of the former, we are back on topic: selling Knock-Off 'A's.
In case of the latter, we are back on topic: not buying Knock-Off Wii-s.

Re:Obvious

[torkus]

"Should not matter" but it does. Unions, as a rule (there are exceptions), ADD COST. Running the union by itself adds cost. Then the union has to deliver something more than the worker bees would get without it. This also adds cost.

I don't recall anything where a union increases quality of the end product. In fact, unions generally mean you're guaranteed a job and remove the majority of competition between workers...so why would anyone bother working harder to make a better product? Your entire counter-argument and justification fails. Look at the american car industry. Unions are bankrupting the american car manufacturers. While I don't think american cars are the crap they were 15 years ago, they're CERTAINLY not any better than what comes from japan. That's just one example of MANY.

Personally I'd just assume buy the best product for the least price. I don't care of slave-gang unicorns build them. If someone i'm given the equal choice between union and non-union, THEN i will go non-union. Unions are worse than corporate executives making 50-100x more than their average employees.

Re:Obvious

[MrOuija_AK]

Unfortunately, being union isn't a guarantee of benefits and good wages. Due to the monopolistic practices of Wal-Mart, many of it's competitors can't provide those benefits and stay competitive. This forces the unions to back off on things like strikes, when demanding pay increases and other various items during contract negotiations, because they know the employers will shutdown rather than succumb to their demands.

Re:Obvious

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Failure/Success is pretty much defined as whatever the parents think it is.

They're the people who have the most incentive to get it right.

Thats why the voucher system would be good. It would introduce some sort of feedback into the public school system. It would make it easier for parents to take their kids out of bad public schools, if at some cost.

Re:Obvious

[KDR_11k]

Then don't be surprised if the product is so bad that it doesn't meet your requirements. There's good cheap products and bad cheap products, some cheap stuff is almost as good as the expensive kind and really worth the money while other stuff is crap that's not even worth the lower price so you're better off paying a bit more. Don't just buy on price alone.

Re:Obvious

[Xeirxes]

I think a more valid point is the fact that the two things aren't even comparable. Sure, the Wiimote isn't as low quality, but the two don't even do the same thing.

Re:Obvious

[gbulmash]

In effect, the union organizations are selling out their rank-and-file (who are the ones who really get hit by the wage depression as a result of all the illegal workers) in order to bring in lots of new members and make themselves more powerful.

Actually, they do this to get more new members paying into pension funds and other benefits accrued by retirees and senior members. I know a union shop that finds it easy to deal with the unions... offer contracts that benefit the retired or nearly retired members. They'll gladly shaft all the new Spanish-speaking members.

Re:Obvious

[LeoHat]

*cough*Bullshit*cough*Bullshit*

Walmart average wage is $9.68/hr. Costco's average is $16.

Walmart: only 38% of nonsupervisory staff has health care. Walmart dumps its employee health care on the state health care system.
Costco: 85% of employee's are covered. Costco offers part-time employees partial coverage. There is even a test program to offer a health care plan to self employed customers.

On a per store basis Costco does double that of Walmart
"Wal-Mart operates 5,332 stores with annual sales of $288 billion, or $54 million per store. Costco has 452 stores with annual sales of $48 billion, or $106 million per store."

Costco's turnover is about 1/3 of Walmarts.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2005/tc2005107_6620.htm

The Costco Mission Statement
1)Obey the law.
2)Take care of our members.
3)Take care of our employees.
4)Respect our vendors.
5)Reward our shareholders.

Walmart does not even have a official mission statement

(disclaimer: I work for Costco)

Re:Obvious

[jamar0303]

That's why I shop at Costco.

Re:Obvious

[Cuppa 'Joe' Black]

Obey the law? It's a sad commentary on corporate culture that that should have to be specified in a mission statement.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I've happily spent less than $1/year at WalMart in the last decade, but I feel that even that is too much. Why were you in Walmart looking at meat if you weren't buying anything?

Re:Obvious

[archmedes5]

Unions suffer the same problems as the businesses that they're supposed to be keeping in line, they get greedy. A rather interesting example is a strike as IBP near where I live in the early 80's over wages ended up with the workers getting LOWER wages than what they would have gotten without union intervention, I was very very young at the time so I don't remember the details, but my mother was there and has lost a great deal of faith in unions due to the UFCW's handling of that situation. I work in a factory environment, there is no union, wages are very good, the work is pretty easy, the benefits rock, I get sick time, and somewhere around 2 weeks of PTO each week that I can bank up to 600 hours before it stops rolling over. The UFCW has made overtures to the company that I work for, they were promptly told each time to get lost as many of the workers consist of ex-IBP employees.

My state has recently enacted a law requiring anybody who works in a union shop, but has not joined the union to pay dues, because they make use of union resources, even though they have no other options in most cases (the union may have insinuated itself so firmly between the workers and management that management refuses to deal with employees directly). I found this to be wholly unfair to people who don't want to deal with the union and would rather deal with the company themselves.

Re:Obvious

[Jeppe Salvesen]

That's biological warfare. Call the department of homeland security!

Re:Obvious

[mcarp]

Hey! You know what? Thats good! It shows that the (partially) free market in still at work and doing well. Unions drive up the price of labor (a commodity like entity) and thwart performance. Union employees are asked to provide mediocre labor to keep the work available longer and easier to perform. Its in the union rules most of the time how much work can be performed to prevent overburdonning members. Remember when labor performance incured a reward in the form of a raise? Not if you're unionized you don't remember. Union members make rate. So it doesnt matter how hard you work and your buddy is a slouch you both get paid the same. If a boss tries to fire the slouch the union board steps in and says hey hold on here a minute you cant fire our union member. Remember when bad performanced incured a punishment in the form of dismissal? I doubt you do if you're a union member. Unless labor is priced as a result of supply/demand then it is artificially priced. If there are 2million ppl who can do your job its going to have LOW VALUE. Too bad! Have some ambition and learn some more valuable skills or work longer hours. This is how business men made successful companies. By insisting on unions and government enforced minimum wages you cripple the labor market and all those companies who must now RAISE THE PRICE OF GOODS. As a result higher pay results not in higher buying power but simply INFLATION.

And btw, your health is not the responsibility of your employer or the govt. IT IS YOURS!

Re:Obvious

[Rodyland]

Obey the law? It's a sad commentary on corporate culture that that should have to be specified in a mission statement.

I'd say it's a sad commentary on the state of the law and its enforcement when a company can make a point by making a point of obeying the law...

Re:Obvious

[Skuld-Chan]

Ironically Toyota cars are often made by union shop workers too...

Re:Obvious

[Skuld-Chan]

Unions are really what you make it - they are supposed to be staffed by employees who join the union. In the one union shop I had a chance to work in however, most employees were too spineless and carefree to bother to show up to meetings or do anything about management decisions.

Re:Obvious

[CastrTroy]

I guess it depends on where you live. In Canada, the Walmart food section seems to be pretty well kept up. My only problem with it is that with such low prices, you'll often go there and find that they are completely out of almost all the items worth going there for. Granted I've never been to a Walmart with fresh produce and meats. So maybe things are different in that aspect. But prepacked lunchmeat, milk products, bread, and frozen food are always the same quality as what I find at my local grocery store. What I find interesting is that Walmart with such low prices is able to keep stuff long enough for it to go bad. My local Food Basics store sells food for really cheap, and they always have some of the best produce and meats of the large supermarket chains. The more turnover a store gets, the better quality the food seems to be. Unless Walmart is buying their food already rotten, which is a possibility, then I don't understand why they would have a problem selling food before its expiry date.

Re:Obvious

[Phoobarnvaz]

Obey the law? It's a sad commentary on corporate culture that that should have to be specified in a mission statement.

Not at all...especially since there are many companies' only reason for existence is to get around whatever laws are on the books to maximize their profits. Prime examples is meat producers/restaurants/service workers/construction industries who are usually only interested in employees who will take whatever BS you put them through & you can pay almost nothing. These are just the most egregious examples with many more anyone can come up with.

Costco & other companies who live/breathe/believe their mission statements should be the norm...but greed & stupidity makes those with the money & power do whatever needs to be done in the shortest term...rather than for the long term. Common sense...ethics & morality are in such short supply that those who have them are outcasts in the business & everyday world.

Re:Obvious

[smurfsurf]

The funny thing about Ford vs. Toyota is that as Toyota as a japanese company already provides its workers much of what unions care about. Job security, long time relationship perspective and care for the employee instead of workers vs. management for example.

Re:Obvious

[Gordonjcp]

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.

Re:Obvious

[Tomthemage]

But it isn't, and in fact quite a few of the unions are involved in legalization schemes because they think all the illegal workers will increase their political clout, if they can get them unionized.

Those damn unions, scheming to legalize the illegal immigrants... It's treason, I tell you, TREASON!

Re:Obvious

[Mr2001]

Unfortunately, no one seems to have solved the glaring flaws in these voucher proposals...

1. If the vouchers can be used at religious schools, that obviously raises First Amendment issues.

2. Taking money out of the public school system makes the public schools worse for everyone who chooses to stay in them (or can't afford to switch, or can't get accepted by a private school - see below).

3. The vouchers aren't guaranteed to cover tuition at any private school, which means they may end up as little more than handouts to the rich families who can afford to pay the difference between $voucher and $tuition.

4. Private schools often perform better simply because they can reject "problem" students, or because of factors at home (parents who are involved, proper nutrition, etc.) that vouchers will not address. Requiring private schools to accept all students will drag down their performance; not requiring them to accept all students means the ones who are rejected will have to stay behind in drastically underfunded public schools.

Failure/Success is pretty much defined as whatever the parents think it is. Unfortunately for that idea, We The People have decided that a government funded education must fit certain criteria. It isn't acceptable to most voters or taxpayers to have education funds spent on schools that teach that the earth is only 6000 years old, or that the sun revolves around the earth, or that George W. Bush is a shapeshifting lizard, even if a few hundred parents would consider such a school "successful".

Thats why the voucher system would be good. It would introduce some sort of feedback into the public school system. There already is some sort of feedback: it's called voting. If your school board isn't doing a good job, throw the bums out!

Re:Obvious

[eldepeche]

If you think there's the kind of slack in the system that 50% of students in some inner city schools would have some place to go, or that voucher money would allow all kinds of new for-profit schools to be founded, you are deluded.

Re:Obvious

[Cuppa 'Joe' Black]

...but greed & stupidity makes those with the money & power do whatever needs to be done in the shortest term...rather than for the long term. Common sense...ethics & morality are in such short supply that those who have them are outcasts in the business & everyday world.

Therefore I say again, 'It's a sad commentary ...'

Re:Obvious

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Ooh.. since we're pretending personal experience is actually worth something let me include mine!

89 Accord. Bought it in 2000. More miles on it than a cheap hooker. Only had to change the oil, never had any problems for the 3 years I owned it.

Re:Obvious

[LordKronos]

That was exactly his point. When he said "sad commentary on corporate culture" it wasn't any sort of insult against Costco.

Re:Obvious

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Yeah, Wal*Mart sure has a monopoly on stores that sell cheap crap for low prices. Target, you say? Never heard of 'em. K-Mart? No such thing. It's Wal*Mart and only Wal*Mart.

Fact is, to compete with Wal*Mart you need to pay your employees more, train them better, keep your store clean, and offer prices that are as close as you can get them to Wal*Mart's prices without sacrificing the quality of the store and staff. I prefer Target simply because that store is clean and the employees don't just leave garbage in the aisles. Target Employees tend to also be more helpful and I've actually encountered a few who knew something about the item I was looking for! Wal*Mart on the other hand hires people who couldn't possibly care any less about the products they are selling let alone know where they are in the massive dirty store.

Re:Obvious

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"ended up with the workers getting LOWER wages than what they would have gotten without union intervention," Don't forget to factor Union dues into that, so it was even lower than that.

Re:Obvious

[lena_10326]

Not only that, but Costco's products (Kirkland) are superior over Sam's Club products. And Costco seems to sell more high end food products.

Walmart's stuff is pretty cheap, but they don't have the cheapest prices. I frequently find identical brands cheaper at Walgreens whenever they have a sale (which is every week). Pretty pathetic considering Walmart's sales volume is far greater.

With food, if you compare Walmart to ALDI, ALDI is far better than Walmart. Most of ALDI's store brands are pretty good. I've tried many of them and only found a handful of "not-so-good" ones. I believe ALDI's pay scale is a bit higher than Walmart's as well.

And then there's produce. Costco's produce is generally very fresh. Walmart's Neighborhood Market is hit or miss.

Re:Obvious

[gordo3000]

what magical country are you talking about? Japan is known for working their employees into the ground under all circumstances. It is considered standard to work your new employees to the bone and then not even let them collect overtime(which is supposedly guaranteed by the government). If you ask why, they tell you "the reason you have to work so hard is because you are too stupid at your job. after 2 or 3 years you can start claiming a little overtime because by then, maybe it's not your fault". of course, it is completely culturally accepted to be treated that way so maybe that is why so many americans think working conditions are actually good.

Japanese employees definitely get the short end of the stick. worse yet, most pay is based purely on seniority (like most unions in the US) meaning the skilled person at 25, even if twice as good as the 45 year old, gets far far less in comp. Hurray for unionism, keeping the most inept receiving paychecks and guarantying raises and jobs for even the most incompetent. I pity all my japanese friends when they tell me about their work and lots of them wish they could work for a foreign company(which I do).

Re:Obvious

[Shilaeli]

Everyone knows Chevy trucks are the most dependable longest lasting trucks on the road.

Re:Obvious

[Hal_Porter]

The sad thing is that most foreign automakers' factories in the US are unionized too. People blaming unions for the downfall of the US auto companies are just looking for an easy scapegoat. Hey this is a union thread! You want to post on it, you use one of our boys. Like Slugger here. He's been goin' to community college and he can read and write pretty good. Can't ya Slugs? But you don't use non union posters. 'Cos maybe slugger don't know what rhetoric is, but he can be pretty persuasive with a baseball bat if you know what I mean.

Re:Obvious

[DreadPiratePizz]

One thing you're forgetting is that american auto workers are the most efficient in the world. Per worker, put out more cars than any other country. Highly trained and paid workers are efficient, which saves a company money.

Re:Obvious

[s4m7]

almost always of far superior quality

GP never said anything about the quality of the products. The argument was about treatment of the workers. Now, arguing that toyota's non-union employees have a better standard of living than GM's may be valid. But don't just strawman this into a discussion about cars.

If, however, Toyota does in fact treat its workers as well or better than unionized autoworkers, the point is proved: better treatment of workers = better products.

Re:Obvious

[sjames]

Many discount stores have mastered the practice of selling cheap low quality knock-offs of more expensive higher quality brands.

WalMart has taken this to the next level. They have enough retail clout that they can often drive the manufacturer to make a knock off of their own product for sale at WalMart. Of course, to meet WalMart's pricepoint they have to send their manufacturing overseas and considerably lower thir quality standards.

The man who said no to WalMart was an interesting read.

Re:Obvious

[yfarren]

1.they pay above minimum wage - sure it's not huge but what do you expect to be paid for stacking boxes?

A living wage you stupid arrogant fuck. The fact that you and I were privileged with a higher education, or the fact that we were born smarter doesn't mean that the mere peasants should all live in poverty.

I have a good job programming computers. That doesn't mean I have any place disrespecting someone else's work. If there is a job that needs to get done, someone deserves to be paid a living wage to do it. If a company cant afford to pay a living wage to do it, it shouldn't get done. Belonging to a society which marginalizes and preys upon it's uneducated and stupid, is disgraceful. And that is exactly what you are doing with "what do you expect to be paid for {insert job here}".

I expect someone to be paid a living wage. A wage that will let them:

1. Pay for housing
2. Buy food
3. Get healthcare
4. Get heat
5. Support a child
6. Have enough time to spend with that child

$20k/year doesn't even buy rent and health insurance. For one person. Let alone someone trying to support a family.

Anyone who treats other people, who talks about other people who are doing useful work, that is necessary, like they are somehow not worthy of those simple things is either not thinking about what they are saying, or to me, mostly a vile person.

I expect a living wage. So should you. Shame on you or anyone modding you up with your hateful rhetoric.

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.

Re:Obvious

[Hal_Porter]

The Costco Mission Statement
1)Obey the law.
2)Take care of our members.
3)Take care of our employees.
4)Respect our vendors.
5)Reward our shareholders 6) Post the Costco Mission Statement on slashdot because it is the Word of God.
7) Destroy Walmart, infidel company.

Re:Obvious

[windex82]

I guess I fully expect others to get a job appropriate to their needs, a stockboys position is clearly not for someone trying to raise a family, you stupid arrogant fuck.

Why the hell should someone be able to support a family on the position of a stockboy?! I would argue these positions are clearly designed for those who are in high school, down on their luck and need cash incoming between jobs, or just plain don't need any more to get by (housewives who need out of the house, househusbands that need out of the house, seniors, etc).

Whats it say about the asshole who irresponsibly started a family well before ready to do so or to stay* in a position that does not allow them to meet the needs of the family? Should we just do away with any pay scales and just start paying people whatever they need to live on? We'd have an entire society trying to flip hamburgers and stocking shelves...

*I use stay because I fully respect that sometimes shit happens and your have to TEMPORARILY take job well below your needs just to have something flowing in... in all actuality if they STAY in the position despite them NEEDING a better job its just laziness.

Re:Obvious

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Ironically, while we don't have our own house in order, we still insist on evangelising other countries to our way of life. Whether this is because of corporations or politicians, it is happening. Right next door we have Canada, who seem to treat their people to a better a way of life, but they have to put up with higher taxes, so maybe this is where the compromise lies. As to Mexico I am never sure how much is down to their own issues or whether we as the USA are doing something to screw them over?

Re:Obvious

[silverkniveshotmail.]

I quite agree. For example, union shop General Motors' cars are almost always of far superior quality and reliability compared to worker oppressing Toyota's cars in comparable categories. They might cost a little more, but you know you're getting quality and helping to fund someone's retirement.

While American Toyota workers are not unionized they are treated very well, and without any major grievances I don't see any reason for them to unionize. Union workers aren't the only ones getting retirement. I think I came off as only supporting union labor, while I only intended to say that union labor isn't a waste of money, and in most situations the non-union worker doing the same job as the union worker gets it a lot worse

Re:Obvious

[Blkdeath]

If, however, Toyota does in fact treat its workers as well or better than unionized autoworkers, the point is proved: better treatment of workers = better products.

Except that the point was that union products = better products. Actually, it was "they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies". So, literally translated it means non-unionized products are "absolute crap".

The respondent (sarcastically) mentioned that Toyotas are built in non-union shops and have consistently outclassed General Motors products in quality over the years. It was later pointed out that in a recent JD Power study of initial quality (note: NOT long term reliability) a single General Motors nameplate (out of the dozen or more they produce) ranked top spot in a single category.

Re:Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually +$.03/unit, but the damn lawyers STILL won't let us do it. :(

Re:Obvious

[Score Whore]

1. Pay for housing
2. Buy food
3. Get healthcare
4. Get heat
5. Support a child
6. Have enough time to spend with that child

$20k/year doesn't even buy rent and health insurance. For one person. Let alone someone trying to support a family.

My total expenses are $33k/year. And I have a $500/mo car payment + $100/mo car insurance. I have $90/mo cell phone bill and a $90/mo cable bill. And of course $1400/mo in rent. In Seattle. When I lived in another state I was paying $800/mo in rent for a two bedroom apartment. If I wasn't making way more than my living expenses I could reduce it below $20k/year. If I had a family to support I wouldn't even be paying any taxes. I guess my point is is that $20k/year is certainly a living wage. You won't be drowning in luxuries and you won't be able to live in Manhattan, but don't act like it's impossible to live on a very modest amount of money if you have the will to do it.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies.

I fail to see the connection of unionized and high quality. Did you read that truism on a leaflet you picked up at the Union Hall or something???

I'm certainly not whole-hog pro-WalMart, but I'm not a vassal of a Union Boss either.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

and helping to fund someone's retirement.

Not just somebody's retirement. You are also funding those expensive hangnail operations that out-of-control health-care benefits insure (why trim your toenails? the chiropractor can do it for you!)

Re:Obvious

[mdarksbane]

And what do you do when there are no local businesses for these uneducated people to go to when they *do* want to start raising a family, because walmart undercut them and put them out of business.

People with barely a high school education, who at the very least need to be able to pay for themselves while they go get a tech degree or something.

The problem with the majority of available jobs being stock-boy at walmart is that there is no upgrade path. You can't start out there on a single young person's salary, gain skills, gain seniority, and go on to something that can support an adult. They *want* people to quit so they can hire someone new for cheaper.

Now, that's fine when it's a subset of the jobs available... but when it is almost all of the jobs available for a high school educated person, there's no reasonable way for them to get to a position that does afford them proper compensation to raise a family. No one expects it right out of high school - but walmart is either a temp position on your way to bigger and better things (which, btw, requires you have the time, motivation, and ability to get some degree of higher education in between working two shifts at walmart just to scrape by yourself) or a dead end.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

The UAW fought, kicking and screaming, at ever step along the way to the plant automation that made that increased productivity possible.

You're going to have to peddle that paragraph, lifted out of a Union Flyer somewhere, in a different crowd.

The rest of us are thinking "Wow! Think of how much MORE productive each worker could be if the companies weren't hamstrung by the Union bosses!"

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

Whats it say about the asshole who irresponsibly started a family well before ready to do so or to stay* in a position that does not allow them to meet the needs of the family?

Didn't you know that we are ALL responsible for paying for the baybees that ignorant people squirt out because they fuck before thinking?

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

No, it's not treason. But let's make sure we shine a bright light on the practice and let the American people decide what it is.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

1. If the vouchers can be used at religious schools, that obviously raises First Amendment issues.

Only if the vouchers specify they can be used only at specific religious schools. Remember, the constitution only prohibits the State from prescribing a particular religion.

If you want to live under a Constitution that specifically enumerates a right to Freedom _From_ Religion, you should move to the People's Republic of China.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

Unionized suppliers are more expensive because the union ensures that the company is treating them fairly

Agreed. The Union ensures that the company treats the Union fairly. By the Union's definition of 'fair' of course.

Ambitious workers be damned. You'll get _scale_ and you'll like it. You'll be written up and possibly fined if you do more work than the guy next to you because you want to advance personally.

Re:Obvious

[that this is not und]

The man who said no to WalMart [fastcompany.com] was an interesting read.

Yes, it was. I wonder about the follow-up story, though.

Here in the small town where I live, the 'big box' stores are still winning. In fact, the small family-run* Hardware Store, the kind of place that Snapper claims is their main selling channel, has shut down. The building is being converted into a small strip-mall.

(* by family-run I mean that there were always family members milling around inside the store happy to answer your question- the best they could, since their qualification to work there was being a family member)

Re:Obvious

[nuzak]

Toyota produces a large number of cars in the USA. These are UAW shops like the rest.

In Japan, the pay and benefits in the manufacturing sector are a matter of law.

Whoosh indeed.

Re:Obvious

[Garridan]

Unions brought us the 40-hour work week, you insensitive clod. Ever wonder why programmers are strong-armed into working 60+ hours a week, and this is standard in few other professions? It's because they don't belong to a union.

Re:Obvious

[phantomlord]

My best friend is in a trade industry union (I'll live it's name and local out of it so it doesn't come back to him). In his union, it is typical to move from job site to job site every weeks or couple months because that's just how the work is (it's not an electrical union, but just as an example, once you wire a site, you go to a new site to wire that).

The union boss is a lawyer who never worked in the field. There are only a handful of employees on a job site at any given time (generally 2-3) so the union steward for that site has no power, it all goes up to the union boss. Their pension is handled by the son of said boss and they're pretty sure that he's embezzling money from the funds but he refuses to show the books. Nobody can press them to find out what's going on because if they do, the business manager (a MBA type) will make sure that there is no work available for that employee. Of course, the employee can't seek out work on their own outside of the union or else there's a major backlash from the union.

He can go to all the meetings he wants, it won't change anything... they can't risk opposing their bosses or else their work will dry up. Meanwhile, nobody knows the true state of their pension. Also, the sad part is so many people are so brainwashed by their union, that they refuse to do anything unless the union (read the union bosses) approve of it... so the union bosses will never fall unless an outside force does it (ie, they get arrested for embezzlement or something even though nobody can see the books to get probable cause to start an investigation).

My best friend is currently weighing an option to be directly hired at the place where he has spent 90% of the last 7 years at and at nearly double the wage he's making with the union. He'll have to leave the union to do it, however, and that means losing a good chunk of his existing pension, having a lot of his friends turn their back on him because he's no longer union, etc. If he doesn't take the job, someone else will end up doing it anyway so it's not like it's taking a job from the union... but, much like the mafia, once you're in, you aren't "allowed" to leave.

Re:Obvious

[HeroreV]

Soon they're going to have way too many people with the feeling that Walmart sells 100% cheap crap products Most of the stuff Wal-Mart sells is name brand, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. The name brand stuff I buy from Wal-Mart is the exact same name brand stuff they have everywhere else. If you buy stuff that isn't name brand, perhaps Wal-Mart isn't a good place to shop, but otherwise it's the exact same stuff.

Re:Obvious

[sjames]

Here in the small town where I live, the 'big box' stores are still winning. In fact, the small family-run* Hardware Store, the kind of place that Snapper claims is their main selling channel, has shut down. The building is being converted into a small strip-mall.

I'm sure they're taking a hit like any company that focuses on anything but producing the cheapest and crappiest product they can get away with seems to these days, but they're still in business and manufacturing in the U.S. which I doubt would be true if they had said yes to WalMart.

I'm wondering when the consumrs who buy gren are going to catch on to the fact that cheap low quality products create more landfill faster than more expensive but durable products do.

Of course, in some things like home electronics, it's hard to figure out which product is which. I've seen expensive name brand crap and cheap no-name quality as often as the other way around.

Re:Obvious

[canadian_right]

I disagree. I think you are confusing entitlements and rights. Rights are things other people can't stop you from doing. Entitlements are things other people give you. I'm all for everyone enjoying strong rights, like freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to organise, etc... I'm against entitlements except for medical care and education. If you think anyone who works deserves more then you are free to give YOUR money to anyone you think needs help.

If you are stacking boxes you deserve a low wage. Stacking boxes should not be any ones career who expects to raise a family, it's a job for students. Running a cash register takes more skill and should pay more, but no one has the right to expect ANY old job to pay enough to support a particular life style.

What people expect has gone way up over the last 50 years. When I was very, very young the 'apartment' my dad rented for his family was an unheated attic (some heat drifted up from downstairs). It was CHEAP, and you could not rent it out today due to regulations. No one thought it odd that a poor family had no car or even a radio, and getting new shoes was a big deal. You could get by on a very low wage. I think it is harder to live on the cheap today due to high taxes, regulations, and much higher expectation as to what a minimal standard of living is. (Dad did work his way up the ladder of success and we were in the attic for only a year.)

If you want a higher wage, learn a skill that pays more. This is where a government provided entitlement to education can help. So why is it better to give out free education instead of just increasing the minimum wage? Increasing the minimum wage often gets people laid off and/or moved into the black market which generally has no benefits and other drawbacks. Not everyone who gets more education, and I mean trades training as well as college, immediately lands a great job, but they do tend to do better over the long term. Education has no draw backs except for high taxes to support it.

Walmart plays hard-ball. They closed a store in Quebec rather than deal with its newly unionized staff, but it is their right to do that. Boycott them if you disagree with their policies.

Re:Obvious

[domatic]

When I was a kid and we had a toy break in a really lame way we'd say it was "K-Mart Fall Apart". When it comes to cheesy crap at a cheap price Wal-Mart makes K-Mart look like a bunch of pikers. I remember a few years back that Snapper pulled their mowers out of Wal-Mart rather than cheap out on quality and put the Snapper logo on it. They seemed to feel that it would hurt their reputation for building pricey mowers that were worth every penny.

The only things I ever buy from a Wal-Mart are boxed and canned goods and things like trash bags. Even then, I find the quality and freshness to be suspect. We made the mistake of buying some steaks from Wal-Mart once. It tasted like freezer-burned roadkill. I wouldn't give Wal-Mart meat to a dog. And don't get me started on the fellow customers you meet in one......

Re:Obvious

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

1. If the vouchers can be used at religious schools, that obviously raises First Amendment issues.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

Congress cannot make or promote any particular religion. The First Amendment does not guarantee freedom FROM religion, just that the government won't officially endorse one.

As such, if I choose to use my voucher to go to St. Bob's Institute for Christianity, Buddha's Home for Enlightenment, Mohammad's Center for Sharia Education, or Jim's School of Secularity, it doesn't matter... the government isn't endorsing any religion in any of those cases; The parents have made their choice of where to send their kid.

Taking money out of the public school system makes the public schools worse for everyone who chooses to stay in them (or can't afford to switch, or can't get accepted by a private school - see below).

Doubling the money spent in the public school system hasn't helped it, who says taking money away and forcing them to become more efficient will make it worse? My school property taxes go up 6-15% every year. In a $30 million budget for ~2000 kids, they can't find anywhere to trim the fat because they don't have to. The school is so full of inefficiency, it's sickening... and a lot of that comes down to the rules the union imposes on the school (teacher's teach 4 classes, oversee a lunch or study hall and have 4 classes off a day. They all get their own room, which sits empty half the day, even though every 5 years, the school board decides to add on a new $25 million expansion to make more room for students. They get tenure after their first year and even the teachers who come in drunk can't be fired. A 23 year old teacher fresh out of college gets paid above the median income for my town and within 10 years, it just about doubles. Etc). $11 million on salary, $6 million on benefits, $6 million on building loans, $175k on books.

What do they have to show for it? Drop out rates have doubled since 1995, test scores are down across the board despite the tests being easier, kids can't do basic math (stuff I was doing before kindergarten), they can't follow directions, they can't figure out how to do trivial tasks (like mopping a floor) themselves, their vocabularies are ridiculously small, etc. The school has failed by nearly every measure to educate kids and prepare them for adult life. They can't function in a work place, they don't know anything about raising a family, and aren't prepared for college, etc. About all they can handle is asking mom and dad for money, driving to the mall and hanging out with their friends.

Frankly, maybe if the public schools were forced to do with a little less, it would make them think about what they're actually doing so they could make it better... because it sure doesn't get worse.

The vouchers aren't guaranteed to cover tuition at any private school, which means they may end up as little more than handouts to the rich families who can afford to pay the difference between $voucher and $tuition.

Lots of private schools give out scholarships and if more students are coming on vouchers, it'll free up more of that scholarship money to let more kids come in. Vouchers would open up private schools to far more kids than who currently have access to them now... should we saddle those kids with a near guaranteed bad education or should we give them the same opportunities that the rich kids have? There's no reason why you can't put an income cap to receive vouchers either if that's what you're worried about.

Private schools often perform better simply because they can reject "problem" students, or because of factors at home (parents who are involved, proper nutrition, etc.) that vouchers will not address. Requiring private schools to accept all students will drag down their performance; not requiring them to accept all students means the ones who

Re:Obvious

[xrayspx]

True story. Just remember what my fridge magnet says "Red meat won't kill you. Fuzzy, green meat will kill you".

Exactly the same thing happened to me, except not at a WalMart, but at a well known Canadian grocery chain, Zehrs, which is actually Loblaws

You could call Bob Loblaw, he might write it up on his Law Blog.

Re:Obvious

[mabhatter654]

actually many non-darlings of Wall Street have that in their statements, my company has something similar. Companies in non-growth industries can't afford lawsuits, and large legal fees from people suing them left and right. It's much better to follow the letter and the SPIRIT of the law than to fight things. The big companies at the top are really quite unethical compared to medium-sized companies. The only reason mega-corps get away with what they do is everybody at the ethical companies has their nicely rewarded savings wrapped up in their stock. Until people stop putting stock in criminal enterprises like Microsoft, the situation will get worse.

Re:Obvious

[Dorceon]

My understanding is that in Japan, there are unions, but they're not industry-wide unions for a class of jobs like they are here. All the Toyota employees are in the Toyota union. This means the union leadership has to care about Toyota staying healthy. If Ford dies, the UAW survives, even if a bunch of its members are out of jobs. If Toyota dies, the Toyota workers' union dies with it. It also means you don't get infighting between unions over whose job it is to do something.

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

Now, I use this word very, very carefully and not in the inflated sense it is being used today, but that's domestic terrorism.

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

Umm... isn't there some sort of health code or board that should be responsible for checking something like that, where you, as a customer, can call if you should happen to notice something like that?

After some recent meat "problems" around here, they're quite "happy" about reports like that, I remember a report about my local store of some meat looking "odd" which prompted something that could only be called raid, police cars for blocks hauling away a few boxes of meat. Was quite a sight.

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

All snideness aside, yes you do. You make sure that the money you spend stays in your country, goes to someone's pockets who lives in your country and spends it again in your country.

Re:Obvious

[bdjacobson]

Just a side note, Toyota cars have more "produced in America" man hours than any of the competitor's cars.

For those of you in the Kentucky area where I came from, I would recommend you check out the Toyota plant in Georgetown. They talk about all this-- the quality, why they've never had a problem with unionization, etc. Most intriguing. They are actually quite proud that being a Japanese company their cars are more American than Ford's/GM's/etc.

They pay very high too-- most workers start are making $24-26 within a year or two last I checked.

They rotate the employee's assembly line position every week so nobody gets overly bored-- after about a year of working they can assemble all of the Toyota cars by hand if they had the parts.

Each worker also has a "quality control" button that they can pull to stop production on the whole line if they see something not fitting right or that seems out of place, at which point the engineers come over and check it out.

They also offer rewards to employees for optimizing plant layout-- a new part transportation route frees up room on this isle and makes room on that one giving more room for xxyy.

Whereas GM designs the car and then says to the worker "Ok yes having to assemble this might give you RSI or back problems in 30 years, we'll pay for them then", Toyota redesigns the parts and assembly process until there's no risk of injury to the workers.

Not to mention they're geniuses. Did you know the integration of the combustion and electric engine and how they coordinate for power in the Prius went from conception to the market in less than a year?

There's a billion reasons why they're #1 and not unionized, and it's because they're masterful artisans interested in producing a better profit through a better product.

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

When you look up carefully now, you can observe a joke.

Re:Obvious

[drsquare]

A living wage you stupid arrogant fuck.

Stacking shelves isn't supposed to be a career, it's not something you're supposed to do for the rest of your life to sustain a family. It's something for part-time workers, the retired, and schoolkids. If you want a decent living wage, then study at school so you don't have to do a job that could be done by a trained monkey.

Re:Obvious

[Mozk]

:D Why wasn't this modded up?

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

What's sad is that it has to be said. I'm just waiting for the new slogan: "GoodCorp. We do obey the law."

Re:Obvious

[Opportunist]

So you're only entitled to have a family if you have a good education and some nice bucks coming in?

Re:Obvious

[mrscorpio]

Ugh, don't go there. I can just imagine the ad campaign: "It's my Wii in a box!"

Re:Obvious

[Kopretinka]

I wonder, what $9.99 product have you bought there ten years ago? 8-)

Re:Obvious

[Billly Gates]

I left some ground beef from walmart in the fridge for a week.

It turned of course but it was still red and did not turn brown?? They dyed it red and anyone you have to ask yourself why? Was it brown to begin with?

That is just disgusting.

Re:Obvious

[Mr2001]

Lots of private schools give out scholarships and if more students are coming on vouchers, it'll free up more of that scholarship money to let more kids come in. Vouchers would open up private schools to far more kids than who currently have access to them now...

That's an interesting theory, but it flies in the face of basic economics. If you suddenly increase demand (give every family $2000 to spend on tuition) without increasing supply, prices go up to keep the demand under control. Now the education that used to cost $2000 will cost $4000 instead, because the school doesn't have enough space or staff to accept every student who shows up with a voucher in hand.

should we saddle those kids with a near guaranteed bad education or should we give them the same opportunities that the rich kids have?

False dichotomy. There's another alternative, which is to study the public schools that work and apply whatever it is they're doing to the ones that don't work.

There's no reason why you can't put an income cap to receive vouchers either if that's what you're worried about.

Well, there is one reason: it goes against the principles that are supposedly behind vouchers in the first place. If it's wrong to force people to pay into a school system they aren't using, then what does income have to do with it?

What I'm worried about is not that rich folks will be able to take advantage of vouchers -- it's that (1) vouchers won't actually make private schools much more accessible, (2) to the extent that they do make private schools more accessible, they'll also make them perform worse, because their performance has more to do with exclusivity than efficiency, and (3) "competition" from vouchers will make public schools worse, not better, with dire consequences for the students who still attend public school.

Public schools reject problem students too... they send them to vocational schools for half the day.

Public schools can't turn anyone away. No matter what they spend the day doing, those students still count toward the school's performance statistics and the district still has to spend money on them.

There's also nothing saying that private schools have to change their application requirements to accept just anyone.

So, what happens to the students who aren't accepted by private schools, now that their local public school has lost most of its funding?

We'll have more schools with fewer students in them (a school with 500 kids where the staff knows every kid is far more likely to succeed than a school with 5000 kids) and they'll each be more efficient to boot.

Ah yes, things always turn out so well in theory.

what do you expect when you tell parents that it's the schools job to basically raise their kid for them (right down to giving an 11 year old birth control pills so they don't have to have an uncomfortable talk with their parents)

Off topic, but the point of providing contraception and sex education in school isn't so that parents don't have to have an uncomfortable talk, but to account for the fact that some parents won't have an uncomfortable talk, or won't provide contraception, etc., if it's left up to them, and the voters have decided it's a bad thing to have kids growing up without knowing the first thing about pregnancy. That's another consequence of public schools having to accept everyone - some of the kids don't even get fed at home, let alone taught about the birds and the bees.

As for the "drastically underfunded" public schools, throwing more money at the problem has NEVER, EVER been shown to help it.

Taking money away is guaranteed not to help it. Public schools aren't businesses. If you take away their budgets, they won't get more competitive, they'll just wither away.

Seriously, if you started taking away a police or fire department's budget and giving the money to private

Re:Obvious

[Hubbell]

Part time jobs are for old people (retired), retarded people, and teenagers. None of them are being supported solely by their wages, but by either parents or retirement benefits.

Re:Obvious

[xrayspx]

It's worse than that. I was thinking of the couple times I've dashed in to grab something quick at 3:00am (seamstress measuring tape [$0.88, and at 3am no less], or a soda or whatever), and I totally forgot that I bought a TV there 6 or 7 years ago. There goes all that hipster cred, d'oh.

Re:Obvious

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

That's an interesting theory, but it flies in the face of basic economics. If you suddenly increase demand (give every family $2000 to spend on tuition) without increasing supply, prices go up to keep the demand under control. Now the education that used to cost $2000 will cost $4000 instead, because the school doesn't have enough space or staff to accept every student who shows up with a voucher in hand.

Supply WILL increase. There will be an incentive to create new schools because kids who couldn't afford to attend non-public schools otherwise will have the money to do so. Will it happen overnight? Probably not... it'll take a couple years for it to all shake out.

And again, there is nothing that says a private school HAS to take all students who apply. They could limit the size of each graduating class.

And where do you live that public education is only costing $2000-4000 per student? Public education is closer to $15,000 each here (western NY). Spending has already doubled in the last 15 years and there is nothing to show for it except a higher dropout rate and a diploma that no longer means you can make change.

should we saddle those kids with a near guaranteed bad education or should we give them the same opportunities that the rich kids have?

False dichotomy. There's another alternative, which is to study the public schools that work and apply whatever it is they're doing to the ones that don't work.

The public schools that work are run more like private schools. Limited acceptance, parental involvement, etc. Those that are open to anyone tend to be in better towns with more affluence and parents who care what their kids are doing. School's can't copy that, it starts at home. You want a solution there? Tie the welfare benefits to the children's success in school (yes, I know it's far wider than a welfare problem... but I'd venture that 90% of the children receiving welfare are involved with dropouts and low grades).

There's no reason why you can't put an income cap to receive vouchers either if that's what you're worried about.

Well, there is one reason: it goes against the principles that are supposedly behind vouchers in the first place. If it's wrong to force people to pay into a school system they aren't using, then what does income have to do with it?

What I'm worried about is not that rich folks will be able to take advantage of vouchers -- it's that (1) vouchers won't actually make private schools much more accessible, (2) to the extent that they do make private schools more accessible, they'll also make them perform worse, because their performance has more to do with exclusivity than efficiency, and (3) "competition" from vouchers will make public schools worse, not better, with dire consequences for the students who still attend public school.

I'm trying to find middle ground with those who don't support vouchers... Isn't it liberals who always talk about shades of gray? Someone complained that vouchers would give an unfair advantage to rich kids so means test it if that resolves the problem.

1) Vouchers will absolutely make private schools more accessible in the same way that college grants make going to college (public or private) more accessible. I got to go to a private college that was $20k a year for about $2000 a year. Without the grants, I wouldn't have had that opportunity. If a parent can send their kid to a private school at the cost of an extra 5 hours of week of work (assuming a minimum wage job), don't you think they would do it? Don't you think that, if kid's education meant an extra (albiet fairly small) sacrifice on the part of the parent, the parent would most likely instill the value of education in their kid?

2) Again, nothing says private schools can't keep minimum standards. You want to get into a private school, well, you have to earn it by showing you value your education. Again, if you are go

Re:Obvious

[TheGeneration]

What I don't understand is why brands that have recognition as being quality products would be willing to soil that image by kneeling to Wal-mart's requests for cheaper and cheaper products. Sure, in the short term you're company will see drastic revenue cuts if Wal-mart drops your product, but at least you'll still have a product in a couple of years.

Coleman used to be a good camping gear maker. They've complied with Walmart's demands and now everything sell is cheap Chinese crap. I stopped buying at Wal-mart once I realized that I can't afford to buy cheap (ie, if I'm paying money, any amount of money, it needs to last.)

The worst part of Wal-mart's strategy is that a lot of these manufacturers that once made quality goods sell to other stores. The end result is that finding quality at ANY store has become a very difficult thing to do. If Wal-mart carries that company's products you're going to find the same poorly manufactured products in any store that carries that company's products.

Thanks to Wal-mart's view on globalism we as the consumer are in a race to the bottom.

Re:Obvious

[TheGeneration]

The problem is that those brands are soiling their reputations by bowing to Wal-marts demands to cheapen their products. Wal-mart is so powerful economically in the US (7 cents on every dollar is spent there) that companies have little choice but to do as Wal-mart demands and make the product cheaper and cheaper. Rubbermaid is an example of a company that once made fantastic products and now makes crap so that they remain in Walmart. Coleman (camping goods) has the same problem.

RE: Obvious

[lorenlal]

But if that mission statement (or idea) was already in mission statements, or just followed by our corps...

What would the anti-trust committees in congress do? They'd have nobody to yell at and promptly throw out their cases on.

That'd be SOOOOOO boring!

Re:Obvious

[Mr2001]

Supply WILL increase. [...] Will it happen overnight? Probably not... it'll take a couple years for it to all shake out.

And during those couple years, we'll just have to deal with a system that combines the worst parts of public and private education?

And again, there is nothing that says a private school HAS to take all students who apply. They could limit the size of each graduating class.

Same difference. The end result is that the vouchers aren't as useful as they first appear, because you have no guarantee that you can actually exchange one for a seat in any school.

And where do you live that public education is only costing $2000-4000 per student? Public education is closer to $15,000 each here (western NY). Spending has already doubled in the last 15 years and there is nothing to show for it except a higher dropout rate and a diploma that no longer means you can make change.

In Washington State, where I live, it's more like $9500 per student. $2000 is a number I just made up. But you can't directly translate per-student spending into voucher amounts unless you want to pretend overhead doesn't exist, which leads to the "drastically underfunded public schools" problem I mentioned: just because the state is spending, say, $10 million for 1000 kids doesn't mean you can cut it down to 500 kids and only spend $5 million to achieve the same results.

The public schools that work are run more like private schools. Limited acceptance, parental involvement, etc.

Not around here, they aren't. Maybe you should look further than your own back yard.

Vouchers will absolutely make private schools more accessible in the same way that college grants make going to college (public or private) more accessible.

The limited availability of grants has a lot to do with their success.

Again, nothing says private schools can't keep minimum standards. You want to get into a private school, well, you have to earn it by showing you value your education.

You still haven't answered the question of what happens to the kids who are rejected by private schools. Do they not get an education at all? Or do they have to stick with their local public school, which now can't even keep the lights on because the other students have left and taken their funding with them?

Public schools can't get much worse than they are. 10% of public schools have a 40% drop out rate.

Well, first off, I don't think the dropout rate is a very good measure of a school's success.

But let's suppose for the moment that your statistic is meaningful... how can you possibly think it couldn't get any worse? 10% is much less than, oh, 90%, isn't it? A 40% dropout rate is much less than 100%, right?

Why do such horrible schools get to stay in existence, [...] If they can't help the students, it's time to get rid of those schools and create ones that will.

Agreed, but that doesn't have to mean privatization.

That's part of the problem... who can get an education when they go to school knowing they're going to get their ass kicked by the guy who doesn't even want to be there to begin with?

Agreed. My solution is to end mandatory schooling, so the guy who doesn't want to be there doesn't have to be there.

I didn't say condoms and sex ed... I said birth control. As in hormones.

I didn't say condoms either, I said contraception, which includes hormonal birth control. I'm not aware of any schools that actually do supply that, but I'll take your word for it.

They can royally screw up your entire body and in some cases, have severe negative side effects (stroke, heart attack, tumors, blood clots, depression, etc).

Indeed, which is why they can't be dispensed without a prescription. Are you suggesting some schools are breaking the law by supplying prescription birth control to students

Re:Obvious

[thogard]

That might be the result of pumping the package full of carbon monoxide. The CO kills off the bacteria that changes the color and creates the nasty odour but doesn't kill off the bacteria that is making toxins that cooking won't fix.

Re:Obvious

[Warbothong]

"It's because as I understood the explanation, they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies." What on Earth is wrong with atoms having an equal number of electrons and protons, and why should that affect meat-buying decisions?

Re:Obvious

[Parafilmus]

The name brand stuff I buy from Wal-Mart is the exact same name brand stuff they have everywhere else. Not necessarily. Music albums and games sold at Wal-Mart are often specially censored versions.
Cover art is altered frequently for Wal-Mart. Sometimes content is altered as well.

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.

Re:Obvious

[torkus]

Reference? I'm rather sure that the 40 hour work week is law though it may have originated from union lawsuits or somesuch.

Now, i don't think i said unions NEVER did anything good. In the past they did serve a purpose. They've far outlived their usefullness though.

Ha, and programmers working 60+hour weeks might be an example of unions failure to be effective (and thanks for pointing that out). If they were so great programmers (and other IT folks - guess what programmers aren't the only abused ones by far!) would have unionized...well...an awful long time ago i'd think.

The real problem with 60+ hour uncompensated work weeks lies in our government and the fact that it's in bed with big business. We don't need a union to fix that, we need a responsible government.

Still, this does not invalidate my original point - unions don't make products (or whatever they do) any better than non-union shots. Cheap crap is cheap crap. Unions add cost (no matter how you look at it) so you then get less-cheap cheap crap. I'd say non-union still wins, especially from the wal-mart perspective.

Next?

Re:Obvious

[dank zappingly]

Doesn't Japanese have a word for working so much you die?

Re:Obvious

[MaxVT]

Isn't "obeying the law" supposed to be implied? I find it very funny (and strange) that it takes the top spot in a business mission statement.

"In the year 2007, we've became 15% better at obeying the law! *a round of shareholder applause*"

Re:Obvious

[dank zappingly]

A living wage is a very nice idea. However, there is a theory that raising the minimum wage generally increases unemployment. In other words, if a company can't afford to pay a living wage, they fire the people they can no longer afford. Minimum wage is better than no wage at all. Also, when you pay people more, the goods they are producing tend to start to cost more, and the living wage you were aiming for won't buy the same basket of goods. There is also a collective action problem. If one company institutes a living wage, it makes the goods in that country more expensive. Companies then outsource heavily, and the next thing you know, you are sending your boxes to china to be stacked and then shipped back. You can try to remedy this problem with protective tariffs, but believe it or not, they aren't too popular.

Re:Obvious

[Archangel Michael]

1) Not a problem. I think forcing kids into secular schools (where every religion but Judeo/Christian is taught) is a violation of 1st Amendment. When kids have to recite Koran, but Bible is nowhere to be found, I have an issue. Where is the ACLU??

2)False problem. Since all schools would compete for the same voucher, it wouldn't take money out of public schools unless they sucked. In which case they deserve to fail. Unintended consequence would necissitate plenty of private (not necissarily religious) schools taking vouchers, and the best ones replicating their success.

3) Not a problem. This is just a Red Herring. Many (if not most) Private Schools function on *much* less money than public schools. What makes you think this is going to change? There will always be places for the rich to flaunt their riches, trying to prevent this is nothing more than class envy, and a red herring.

4) This is a pet peave of mine. I work in public education, and many of the problem students account for most of the waste of money. It is so bad that in many cases, the truly bright and intelligent children are left to themselves, and aren't getting the education THEY deserve. However, vouchers can solve this problem, and so can private education. Variable Vouchers. Let the parents of the children who are "special needs" petition for increased voucher amounts based upon those needs. Force them to take responsibility for making sure those needs are filled, not just in school but also at home as well. Perhaps if a parent had to actually deal with their problem children, rather than passing them onto the schools for 6-8 hours a day, we could actually improve schools for those that actually want to be there.

Re:Obvious

[ncc74656]

I guess my point is is that $20k/year is certainly a living wage.

Been there, done that: $400/month for rent, $150/month for a payment on an older used car (only because some dumbass cut me off and totaled a car that was fully paid for), $100/month for car insurance, maybe $30-$40 each for the cell phone and cable. That adds up to $730 per month, and I was probably clearing $1200 per month after taxes, so utilities (maybe $150 in the summer, maybe half that the rest of the year), food, etc. comes out of the remaining $470. On that income, I eventually shifted another $200 toward housing to pay the mortgage and HOA dues on a 1-bedroom condo...it was small, but it was mine.

This wasn't in some tiny village out in BFE, either, but in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas before real-estate investors from California drove prices through the roof, but still...)

I'm now substantially better off, and as soon as I finish moving the rest of my stuff out of that condo I bought on a $20k-per-year income, it's getting rented out so someone else can pay the mortgage on it.

I suspect that most people's inflated sense of what constitutes a "living wage" is a result of their own unwillingness to live within their means. They think that, right out of college (or maybe even right out of high school!), they should have the same standard of living as their parents. They think they're entitled to a new car every 2-3 years (and nothing so ordinary as a Chevy or a Ford, of course...nothing less than a C-class or a 3-series for these types), a 3000-square-foot house in a nice suburb on a quarter-acre lot, monthlong vacations to whatever faraway destination they prefer, eating out every day (or at least every weekday), etc. Never mind that their parents almost certainly didn't start out making the big bucks either...don't know about yours, but the Air Force was paying my old man $74 every other week when I came into this world. You can either make the numbers work by cutting out the frills, get a second job or a better-paying job so you can afford what you want (I had two jobs for a pretty fair chunk of the '90s to pay the bills), or you can live beyond your means and eventually go bankrupt. Unless you're a complete loser who keeps getting fired from one minimum-wage job after another, you can make it work.

Re:Obvious

[dickens]

As I understand, it doesn't so much kill the bacteria as bind to all the hemoglobin and fix it in the red state. Sort of the way CO poisoning victims look very ruddy. Bad juju, though, just the same.

Re:Obvious

[LKM]

That said, hating them because they don't deal with unions is utter crap. In fact, I think I've actually found a single thing I can respect them for.

Yeah, let's respect them for fucking with the workers if these asshats dare organize themselves! They have no rights! They should just produce crap for us and be happy that we even allow them to exist! Wait, what?

Re:Obvious

[dintech]

Great post. I've always had similar sentiments but never been able to describe them so eloquently. Job well done there sir.

Re:Obvious

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

And during those couple years, we'll just have to deal with a system that combines the worst parts of public and private education?

Tell me, when it comes to the environment and global warming, do you believe we should act immediately, even if our actions end up being meaningless, or wait until it is scientifically proven that we're causing it before we act? If we should act immediately, why shouldn't we act immediately to do something to fix our children's education? Their education will have a far greater impact on the quality of their life than the amount of carbon in the air and a degree or two of temperature increase. So let's sit back and just keep the status quo because you're afraid of that "p" word. Why is it that the party who calls itself pro-choice is so against it when it comes to everything but abortion?

Same difference. The end result is that the vouchers aren't as useful as they first appear, because you have no guarantee that you can actually exchange one for a seat in any school.

So again, we should do nothing. We're only watching millions of kids furthering their ignorance but hey, we'll do nothing because you believe that one particular approach isn't "as useful as it appears" and can't solve the problem in entirety by itself.

In Washington State, where I live, it's more like $9500 per student. $2000 is a number I just made up. But you can't directly translate per-student spending into voucher amounts unless you want to pretend overhead doesn't exist, which leads to the "drastically underfunded public schools" problem I mentioned: just because the state is spending, say, $10 million for 1000 kids doesn't mean you can cut it down to 500 kids and only spend $5 million to achieve the same results.

Of that overhead, do you know how much of it is useless fat because there is no competition in the system? My school district has dozens, perhaps upward of 100, of classrooms sitting vacant for half the day. They were built at state prevailing wage (read: above what they could have actually hired the contractor for) and have continuing heating, cooling, cleanup and other maintenance costs. Those costs alone count for about $6.5 million of our $30 million budget this year. We're pretty lean on administrators (compared to other schools anyway) and only spend about $2 million on administration. Larger districts spend expotentially more there as well. Schools have a LOT of room to cut the fat, only they don't have to because they have a guaranteed income every year and can increase that income at their will. You say you're averaging $9500 per student... we're around $15000 per student here (and this is western NY, not NYC... the cost of living is far cheaper here, though the taxes will kill you and the economy has been in the toilet for decades (which is why housing is dirt cheap)). Surely we can cut $5500 for vouchers for each kid if you're operating that much cheaper than us and having better results.

You still haven't answered the question of what happens to the kids who are rejected by private schools. Do they not get an education at all? Or do they have to stick with their local public school, which now can't even keep the lights on because the other students have left and taken their funding with them?

They can apply to the future private schools that will open. Yeah, it's going to take a year or two... in the meantime, they'll continue to be saddled with the same (lack of) education that you're intent on them having in the first place. As for the school not keeping it's lights on, please... like the schools are 100% efficient and have no room to tighten their budgets. Also, if there are less kids going there, there will be less need for teachers at that school (which is the single largest expense in a public school budget). If you have 400 teachers for 2000 kids at an expense of $20 million per year and lose 1000 kids, you now only need 200 teachers at an expense of $10 million per year.

Re:Obvious

[Nurgled]

I couldn't agree more with you that everyone should be able to earn a living wage. If the minimum wage in your area falls short, it's probably time to write to your representative.

(Disclaimer: I'm from the UK, so I don't know what your minimum wage is nor what the general cost of living is. I just feel that if you're going to have a minimum wage it had better be something that people can actually live on, or else it's largely pointless.)

Re:Obvious

[plague3106]

No, it ensures that you're buying cheap crap. Believe it or not, the more expensive items many times ARE of better quality. I'd rather spend three times as much on say a lawnmower that will lasy YEARS instead of some shit walmart one that WON'T last through the winter, forcing me to buy another one.

Re:Obvious

[vldmr_krn]

Walmart does not even have a official mission statement

Twenty seconds of Googling shows this claim to be false. From Wal-Mart's Global Ethics Office

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has always been a values-based, ethically led company. The values guiding our decisions and leadership are the 3 basic beliefs established by our founder, Sam Walton, in 1962:

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Service to the Customer
3. Strive for Excellence

Vision Statement The vision of the Global Ethics Office is to promote ownership of Wal-Mart's ethical culture to all stakeholders globally. The Global Ethics Office was established on June 1, 2004. On June 4, 2004 Wal-Mart released a revised Global Statement of Ethics to communicate our ethical standards to all Wal-Mart facilities and stakeholders. The Global Ethics Office provides guidance in making ethical decisions based on the Global Statement of Ethics and a process for anonymous reporting of suspected ethics violation by calling the Global Ethics Helpline.

Global Ethical Principles Wal-Mart's Guiding Ethical Principles were added to the revised Global Statement of Ethics on June 4, 2004. These principles are designed to assist our Associates and Suppliers with making the right decision and doing the right thing.

1. Follow the law at all times
2. Be honest and fair
3. Never manipulate, misrepresent, abuse or conceal information
4. Avoid conflicts of interest between work and personal affairs
5. Never discriminate against anyone
6. Never act unethically – even if someone else instructs you to do so
7. Never ask someone to act unethically
8. Seek assistance if you have questions about the Statement of Ethics or if you face an ethical dilemma
9. Cooperate with any investigation of a possible ethics violation
10. Report ethics violations or suspected violations

The source that you give for the rest of your alleged facts, LeoHat, is an Op-Ed piece written by "Leo Hindery Jr." titled "Wal-Mart's Giant Sucking Sound" which states "WAKE-UP CALL. Costco is a living example that a company can be extremely profitable and competitive and at the same time not destroy everything and everyone in its corporate path." Since you've just demonstrated an indifference to easily Googled facts, surely you don't expect me to accept your statements at face value just because you stated them more than two years ago in a different publication. You seem to be a prevaricating Costco shill.

Re:Obvious

[plague3106]

The Toyota plant where the car is made? Perhaps you mean "assemblied," since I think most import cars are made overseas and simply put together in America.

Re:Obvious

[MaWeiTao]

You're wrong about the working conditions in Japan. There has been a sense of loyalty, for lack of a better term, to employees. Specifically, companies would go out of their way to avoid firing an employee, even to the point of absurdity. If there was a problem employee, instead of outright firing them, the company would marginalize them, sticking them in some corner of the office, and keep them away from important work. They'd try to make the employee uncomfortable in the hope of driving them to quit.

Most benefits are provided by companies not because of their own altruism but because of government regulations. And if I'm not mistaken retirement is handled by the government, not corporations. In fact, I'm fairly certain Japanese companies pay fewer taxes than Americans do. Japanese do so well, however, not because of government assured benefits. They've done well because they're renown for saving their money. Well, this was the case with the older generation. Young people are huge consumers. The advantage Japan has is that they have so much disposable income. Despite the high price of many goods there many consumer products, like electronics and cars are cheaper there than in the US.

That said, it can be hell working at a Japanese company. Many managers are outright abusive. They openly yell at employees, and it wouldn't be the first time they've gotten physical. Verbal sexual harassment is practically a way of life. I have friends who've experienced all kinds of abuse first hand. It's also expected employees are going to give their all to the company. It's possible to be ostracized if an employee isn't as committed as his coworkers. Needless to say, few Americans would tolerate this regardless of the benefits.

What has made Japan so successful is not the benefits. It's the work-ethic. Japanese are hard workers. They take their job seriously, regardless of the position. Walk into a McDonald's in Japan and it spotless, service is excellent and the food is prepared consistently. They don't have the resentment many Americans seem to have. In Japan people expect that they have to work their way up. I've seen people do the bare minimum to keep their job then complain about how much more they should be earning and how unfair the system is.

There are a lot of problems facing the US automakers, from management's atrocious decision making all the way down to stifling union mandates. One thing that screwed the US automakers in their relationship with unions was that they actually promised too much. Back when business was great for the Americans, due to a lack of real competitions, their benefits were actually quite generous. They established that pattern of expectation so that when business got back and they needed to cut back they found it difficult to do so. And this is why they're stuck paying all those retirement benefits.

And Walmart is crap. But that fake Wii controller is no surprise nor is it anything new. This sort of thing is prevalent in Asia. It sucks, but in some ways it does foster competition.

Re:Obvious

[j_snare]

Education, no. I know quite a several people who have gone on to excellent careers without graduating high school, much less college. If you can find what you're talented at and have the drive to succeed, you'll get your career. Hell, even if you don't find what you're talented at, but you pick something that's not a dead-end job, you'll still get your career if you are willing to work for it.

But "some nice bucks coming in", yes! For the love of all that's holy! Why the hell would you have a family before you can support them? It's not hard to work yourself up to make enough to support a family if that's your goal. But raising a family takes money. There are so many resources out there that can help you get started.

If you have a desire to raise a family, then you go to a free family planning organization, so that you know what you need to do. They'll point you to a free financial counseling organization if you need that, or just tell you the truth of how much it costs to raise a child in your area. If you can't afford it right now, then why on earth would you go ahead and have one anyway?!

I just don't understand this willful disregard for the wellbeing of your family that people seem to have. People get stuck in a rut and say "I can't pay the bills because I'm a victim." The truth is that many people don't want to get advice or get help, or they don't want to have to scrimp and save. If you're not willing to do this, then you're not fit to start a family right now.

Re:Obvious

[ElleyKitten]

$20k/year is certainly a living wage. $20k a year isn't minimum wage. $20k is the poverty line for a family of four. Minimum wage is about half that. When I made a little bit over minimum wage (~$800 a month after taxes) the only reason I was able to get by is because I didn't have a car payment. Oh, and of course, no health insurance. Minimum wage is not a living wage for one person, let alone a family.

Re:Obvious

[sacrilicious]

Take a chill pill. Your mania is WAY out of proportion, and GP is perfectly spot on to casually point out that stacking boxes is a more common and therefor less-paid skill than many others. Don't like economics? Then buy a portrait of Keynes and try screaming at it... that'll have exactly the same effect on reality.

Re:Obvious

[bobcat7677]

I don't get it? Why is WalMart getting singled out for carrying these? I saw the same fake "Wiimotes" in KB Toys yesterday. I'm sure there are plenty of other stores carrying them.

Re:Obvious

[lostsatellite82]

*cough*Bullshit*cough*Bullshit*

I don't get it.

Your opening statement seems to be saying that you're going against the parent's statement and then you go on to agree with the idea of it and give stats backing it up.

Not to be a jerk or anything but you should RTFP before beginning your reply with expletives.

Re:Obvious

[Skuld-Chan]

And this is different that working at an abusive corporation how? Your story is definitely an exception - for every union abuse against employees I could easily research and come up with 10 corporate abuses that are worse because most of live in states where there is right to work laws which means they can fire you for anything - even trumped up stuff.

Re:Obvious

[WilliamSChips]

If American workers suck so much then why do the Japanese have all their cars built here?

Re:Obvious

[WilliamSChips]

You want labor to be a commodity? How about we start with your job?

Re:Obvious

[WilliamSChips]

Union products are at least slightly more likely to be properly cleaned.

Re:Obvious

[Mr2001]

Not a problem. I think forcing kids into secular schools (where every religion but Judeo/Christian is taught) is a violation of 1st Amendment. When kids have to recite Koran, but Bible is nowhere to be found, I have an issue. Where is the ACLU?? Well, it's hard for the ACLU to do anything about those "secular" schools that make kids recite the Koran, since they exist in your imagination. Do you have some kind of portal they could use to enter your imagination and file an imaginary lawsuit?

Re:Obvious

[Mr2001]

Tell me, when it comes to the environment and global warming, do you believe we should act immediately, even if our actions end up being meaningless, or wait until it is scientifically proven that we're causing it before we act? The important question is not whether we're causing it, but whether the actions we're about to take will help.

Why is it that the party who calls itself pro-choice is so against it when it comes to everything but abortion? I don't know, maybe it's the same reason that the party which calls itself pro-life favors the death penalty and an endless war, but opposes health care for children. Come on, are we just going to trade bumper sticker slogans here?

You say you're averaging $9500 per student [...] Surely we can cut $5500 for vouchers for each kid if you're operating that much cheaper than us and having better results. Possibly. Or you could just trim $5500 per student out of your budget and have public schools of the same quality that we do here, with no vouchers at all.

You must not be watching the news lately, but the school board of Portland, Maine [nytimes.com] has recently decided to do just that. They're now in the business of prescribing hormones to your kids without notifying you and without you giving them consent to do so (if you give them consent to give your 11 year old kid a tylenol if she's running a fever, they can give her birth control pills without telling you and without your consent to do so). You know, that really doesn't bother me. Maybe it's because I don't look at children as their parents' property.

The article you linked is about an independently operated clinic offering health services to students. They're medical professionals, and presumably they aren't handing pills out like candy - they're following the law and being as diligent as any other clinic would be. If you'd rather your daughter get pregnant in middle school than go on birth control, you shouldn't be making medical decisions on her behalf anyway.

Re:Obvious

[Score Whore]

I wasn't responding that $20k is minimum wage. I was responding to someone who said "a living wage you stupid arrogant fuck" and then dropped the number $20k as being unlivable. I believe that $20k is definitely livable if you are willing to live it.

However it appears that most are not.

Re:Obvious

[pnutjam]

I've bought meat at kroger that is red on the outside and brownish gray on the inside. I always thought they painted it. One of their meat counter guys told me meat turns brown when it touches other meat (an obvious load of crap). I don't remember if their meat is wrapped in cellophane or in an airtight container that might include CO. I always wondered why Wal-Mart packaged their meat that way.

Re:Obvious

[vuffi_raa]

not here in the bay area- the living wage is closer to 40k- I survived with no health insurance and saving $0 for a number of years on 30k or so, you have to figure that a rat trap IF you can find it here could run you 15k - 20k a year in rent alone and then there are the inflated power and food costs as well......
now that I have a better job where I am making about twice that I can afford to split a 1 bedroom w/ my GF and still save a little and who knows, at the current rate I may even be able to put down on a house in 60 years (houses are somewhere in the 800k on the low end- here)

Re:Obvious

[vuffi_raa]

if there was no one stacking the shelves they would all be empty- someone has to sweep the floor and clean the toilets, stack the shelves, wash the windows, do laundry, flip the burgers, etc- and the more that businesses grow the more need to be done- you can lower the status of people and contribute to higher crime and dissatisfaction or you can at least give the person who is willing to do a unsatisfying crappy job versus selling drugs or robbing you the ability to pay for and respect themselves

Re:Obvious

[tehcyder]

That said, hating them because they don't deal with unions is utter crap. In fact, I think I've actually found a single thing I can respect them for.

You don't see any connection between them exploiting their employees, their customers and also their suppliers?

Re:Obvious

[Omestes]

Should we just do away with any pay scales and just start paying people whatever they need to live on? We'd have an entire society trying to flip hamburgers and stocking shelves...

Have you ever actually held either job? Neither of them are fun, nor easy. Even if I could make a decent wage making fries for morons, I'd rather make the same wage doing something interesting, or entertaining, or even easier. All of the janitors at your office are probably working harder than you, and doing a job much more taxing than yours, and being paid much much less.

The rich just want to look out for themselves, the rest of the society that allows them to be elitist be damned. If it wasn't for the stock boys and janitors, you probably would be where they are.

Caveat emptor

[RelaxedTension]

The subject says it all...

10 to 15$ for it

[wizardforce]

In this first image, you can see the toy's tiny LCD screen. It's small, because it's being forced to fit within the proportions of the Wiimote. The screen is almost too small to be useful at all, and is nearly impossible to play. This gets even worse when playing in the "motion" controlled mode, which supposedly lets you control by moving the thing. I wouldn't know, since it's nearly impossible to move the toy and see the tiny screen at the same time.

I would hope that any parent thinking of buying this would use some fairly rudimentary logic to deduce that it is indeed garbage. Given the sheer number of people who shop at walmart, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if many did actually bother to buy this.

Re:10 to 15$ for it

[jkmartin]

The people that buy this probably also tried to buy Halo for the PS2. With few exceptions, everything purchased at Wal-Mart should be done so with the knowledge that it will be used up in a couple days or used out in a couple months.

Re:10 to 15$ for it

[EtoilePB]

Have you ever tried to explain to a well-meaning and perfectly intelligent grandparent what a Wii is?

My grandmothers are both smart, literate ladies. They're up on current events and they read books and newspapers and they even each have an e-mail address. One of them has latched onto the concept that the shiny white box with the white remote, that I have in my apartment, is a Game. I can easily see her getting mixed up with the two items in a store, because she's simply entirely unfamiliar with the Wii and probably wouldn't even know where to begin game console research. And there may be helpful Wal-Mart employees in the world, but there sure as hell aren't near where she lives...

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

[JustShootMe]

How could you think that resembles it so closely as to be regarded as counterfeit?

It's obvious they took design cues from it, but I don't see what people are complaining about.

Re:unethical

[stevenvi]

Unless the promotional materials (such as the packaging of the toy) refer to it as a device for your Wii, how is selling this unethical? The photo gallery (not article, as there was none) only showed pictures of the toy out of the box. There was no mention of a deceptive box, only a statement that, "hey look, this toy is designed to look like a wiimote. And the toy sucks."

Is it also unethical to sell squirt guns on the basis that they are (or were, anyways) designed to look like guns, except instead of using gun powder to propel bullets, they shoot water? If you look at the box before you buy something, you can save yourself some embarrassment when you have to return it later.

Re:unethical

[ScrewMaster]

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

Hopefully, they wiill notice your letter.

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

[hedwards]

Counterfeit no, but trust me there are people out there that wouldn't realize it until they got it home. I think technically in order to be a counterfeit it would have to either function in place of a real one or have no other function. Being poorly designed shouldn't be enough.

The whole thing looks like it is meant to be somewhat confusing. I don't think that it looks quite like the wiimote, but it does look like a generic wiimote might. And trust me, from what I read, a generic wiimote would be far more useful than that piece of crud.

I think either way this should represent some sort of infringement as it appears to be using a false connection to the wii as a marketing strategy.

Re:unethical

[squiggleslash]

I have to agree. I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these, let alone an entire Wii. They don't look the same, they just use the same styling.

There's no fraud involved, they're taking design cues from a market leader, largely, one assumes, so people see at a glance it's intended to be some kind of gaming device. If this is fraud, then those iFan things that look like iPods are even worse examples, and the CEOs of the companies making them should serve jailtime!

Re:unethical

[feepness]

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

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. Maybe Zonk just has difficulties telling the stories apart?

Re:unethical

[Dr. Cody]

Why do you hate freedom?

Finish your capitalism, young man--every last bite. There are starving entrepreneurs in China...

Re:unethical

[rice_burners_suck]

If Walmart's own employees are confusing the two, then it's probably too similar.

Re:unethical

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A squirt gun is usually quite a bit different from a real gun. Most of them don't try to trade on someone else's brand identity either, I've never seen any that look like any single specific gun such that they look the same at a glance.

It's the use of someone else's brand identity that I think is unethical. I would consider the general WiiMote design to be part of the Wii brand identity.

Re:unethical

[G Fab]

I've got friends who work at Wally world, and I mean no disrespect, but a lot of walmart employees are complete idiots.

And yeah, this is a dinky toy that is meant to knock off a great toy. Kinda sad, but the market will correct. IN fact, it has. For many people, walmart ain't worth the trouble of sandals melting my feet off or lead filled vampire teeth toys. Sure, walmart is doing fine, but only for those who really don't care about reliability. If you don't give a crap about reliability, walmart presents a great bargain for you.

Walmart isn't ruining anything. It's just another lame component of our world. Provides context for all the nice things. It has revolutionized distribution processes and greatly reduced the number of retail ripoffs, and thus has made virtually every american richer. Sounds crazy, but it's true.

Re:unethical

[Jerf]

The true, original purpose of trademark law (which I am aware I'm the first to bring up) is to protect the consumer from products that are designed to fool you into believing you are purchasing a product from somebody other than the true source. That is why the touchstone of trademark infringement is "Would a reasonable consumer confuse the two products?"

As usual, you can skirt the line. You can argue about whether it claims to be a Wii, exactly what the box says, exactly what it claims to be, etc. Nevertheless, I'd say the intent here is pretty clearly to pick up sales through deception, with varying degrees of plausible deniability. That they try to stay on the legal side of the line doesn't make it automatically ethical.

They don't give me enough data to come to a conclusion. But it's certainly enough to be suggestive.

Is it also unethical to sell squirt guns on the basis that they are (or were, anyways) designed to look like guns, except instead of using gun powder to propel bullets, they shoot water?

"Guns" are not a protectable item. A closer analogy here, despite my hatred of using analogies in online debates, are the numerous "generic controllers" that you can buy that contain games in them, but are not unauthorized representations of any particular controller. Only a squirt gun that looked like a specific, trademarked gun would be comparable, and yes indeed, the law will require you to get permission. You can't make a model car that looks exactly like a real car without permission, which is why the Grand Theft Auto world is populated by knockoffs. You can't make a model Enterprise without permission from Paramount, but you can make any generic space ship you want. As is invariably the case with analogies used in debates, the difference between the analogy and the real-world situation render your analogy irrelevant.

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

[evwah]

no, they won't.

Re:unethical

[chaoticgeek]

I used to work at a walmart and wow there are some really stupid people there. Most of the people I worked with were complete morons and always had to get help constantly for the same problems over and over. The managers are not much brighter either.

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

[ThomasFlip]

If people are too stupid not to know the difference they deserve to be ripped off. Must we protect the public from every stupid thing they do?

Re:unethical

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these

are you stupid?

is it really so hard to imagine a parent wanting to buy extra controllers for a Wii, seeing this, and being misled?

the design of this thing is closer to an actual Wii remote than, say, a 3rd party Gamecube controller to a Nintendo Gamecube controller.

the fake speaker on the front is also pretty good reason alone to suspect the product aims to mislead.

Re:unethical

[ColdWetDog]

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.

Not so sure about that - I've seen plenty of squirt guns that have a passing resemblance to the real thing. I do know that my little spring operated pellet gun - which looks rather like a generic 9 mm semi auto pistol - has an orange ring around the muzzle to tip police off to it's benign nature.

Re:unethical

[The MAZZTer]

Old? I'm pretty sure it was just posted on either Joystiq or Engadget mere hours ago. Maybe you're thinking of the Vii or something else.

Re:unethical

[doyoulikeworms]

But chances are, you'll sound crazy in your letter.

Re:unethical

[rm999]

But it's not the product itself that would confuse a consumer, it's the box (unless a reasonable consumer is opening boxes at the store). Does the box trick the purchaser into thinking it is a controller for their Wii? From the gallery, we can't draw a conclusion. And if they are tricking people, you would think Walmart would voluntarily stop selling it to stop returns from people who bought it with/for their Wii.

Re:unethical

[aichpvee]

August 17th, 2007

Re:unethical

[poopdeville]

Keep that in mind next time you go to the pharmacist. Or have your brake lines replaced. Or buy meat.

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:unethical

[Sanat]

My 9 mm semi auto pistol also has an orange ring around the barrel to make the police believe it is benign.

Remember the movie where the star was going to hold up a bank with a squirt gun that was in his pocket, he was nervous and pulled the trigger so when the lady behind the bank counter saw his wet pants she called him a "disgusting man"?

Re:unethical

[timmarhy]

so they buy the wrong thing and have to exchange it - what's your point? It's not named as anything like the wii at all, there's no deception going on. Also, do we have any proof that the speaker is fake, i'm certainly not relying on some random blogger to get his facts right.

Re:unethical

[loconet]

I think this is a highly unethical business practice which must be stopped

Yes! I don't know how people keep on linking to about.com and their garbage gallery.

Re:unethical

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

With the shoot first interrogate later mentality of most cops nowadays its probably a good thing. With their "shoot first, interrogate later" mentality, maybe most cops should be armed with squirt guns instead.

Then instead of headlines like:

"Don't Tase Me Bro!"
and
"Star Simpson - Extremely Lucky Deadly Force Was Not Used"

we would have:

"Don't Wet On Me Bro!"
and
"Star Simpson - Fugly Art Project Almost Shorted Out By Police!"

Re:unethical

[Tablizer]

is posting it again just to make a dupe

No, you're thinking of that sloshdat website. Gotta watch those letters more closely, dude.

Re:unethical

[Jacer]

So... wal-mart's business practices are pretty incorrigible. However, I do think there should be some sort of public response. Without wanting to get into a huge sociological discussion about things, a large part of wal-mart's client base are from the lower and lower-middle class.

With the holiday shopping season is quickly coming up, this product is a trap for parents who otherwise may not be able to afford exactly what their child truly wishes for. I'm not going to say they're going to confuse this for a Wii, but given marketing and appearance, there may be some who see this as a cheaper alternative. I think it's pretty unethical to base your entire company policy on providing lower prices on products and then abuse their confidence by providing a useless, dressed up alternative during a season where loving parents are known for going to extreme measures to provide for their kids.

I think there should be some recourse, and in addition to the parent's address I've grabbed a customer service hyper-link to a web form. Please express yourself constructively. http://www.walmart.com/cservice/cu_commentsonline.gsp?cu_heading=8

Re:unethical

[SleepyHappyDoc]

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

Really?

Re:unethical

[MikeFM]

There have been lame knockoffs that look like Playstation controllers, Nintendo controllers, etc for years and it's never seemed to be an issue. Maybe people who play the Wii are stupider overall since they are evidently getting this confussed. I've seen these at Walmart and they are obviously just a cheap knockoff and they're sold in the toy department. Only a complete moron would be confussed. I've never even seen a Wii controller first hand and I can tell them apart. Doh.

Re:unethical

[fishbowl]

My local gas station used to sell candy in a box that "looks like" a SNES controller. I wish I'd thought to buy one.

Re:unethical

[MikeFM]

Damn, some old coot probably bought one for his grandkids thinking it was the real thing. I feel a class action suit coming on. America - the country where stupid people must be protected from themselves at any cost.

Re:unethical

[aztektum]

thus has made virtually every american richer. Except for the proprietors of small town mom and pop shops it put out of business by offering lower prices only to raise them once the competition was gone.

Re:unethical

[MorpheousMarty]

Your attitude towards analogies is like a cat to water.

Re:unethical

[martin-boundary]

Why would anyone do that?

It's not your job, or the job of Wallmart customers or the job of slashdotters to enforce trademark law. It's for Nintendo's lawyers, and nobody else, to send a letter if and only if they decide that there is some kind of infringement of their registered brands going on.

Besides, this also isn't an ethical issue. FYI, here are some ethical issues: abortion, torture, invading another country, capital punishment, slavery. Wii imitations? Not so much.

Re:unethical

[squiggleslash]

are you stupid?

No, but I'd question the intelligence of someone who confuses one of these with a Wii-mote.

is it really so hard to imagine a parent wanting to buy extra controllers for a Wii, seeing this, and being misled?

Well, only if they're equally likely to confuse a Wii-mote with a mobile phone or a bar of chocolate. The only thing they have to go on is that it is styled similarly to a Wii-mote. It doesn't, however, look like one (I assume you don't have a Wii, and didn't bother looking at the photos. If either are true, then I suggest your first question to me would be better directed at you. Does your Wii-mote have, for example, an LCD screen?), it isn't labeled as one, it's improbable that Wal-Mart will place the device in the Nintendo section with the other Nintendo accessories.

So we have a device that doesn't claim to have anything to do with the Wii, which doesn't look like a Wii-mote, and whose only connection is a vague stylistic resemblance. What parents are going to buy it? Just about the only ones I can think of are parents who'd mistake an iFan for an iPod.

the design of this thing is closer to an actual Wii remote than, say, a 3rd party Gamecube controller to a Nintendo Gamecube controller.

The style is, the design isn't. Of course, the latter doesn't confuse anyone either - people buying third party Gamecube controllers don't appear to have any problems with the concept of "different style, similar function", just as people not buying iFans don't seem to have a problem with "Similar style, different look and function."

the fake speaker on the front is also pretty good reason alone to suspect the product aims to mislead.

But the LCD on the front is a pretty good reason alone to suspect the product is legitimate and only uses the Wii-mote's styling as the typical short-cut way of saying "Hey, I'm fun, and up to date and hip with it!"

Or maybe all those "1980s games consoles in a joypad" things are also attempts to mislead as a substantial number of them look very similar to Gamecube and PS2 controllers. Interestingly, parents don't seem to have a problem with those either.

Meanwhile Wal-Mart takes returns, so for the seriously myopic idiot who wandered into the wrong part of the store and bought something that doesn't look like a Wii-mote and doesn't have any indication on the packaging suggesting it is one, the solution is to return it and get the device he asked for. You'll... I mean he'll... probably need to swap that iFan too. Man, you... er he... knew $10 for an iPod was too good to be true!

Re:unethical

[Rocketship Underpant]

'The true, original purpose of trademark law (which I am aware I'm the first to bring up) is to protect the consumer from products that are designed to fool you into believing you are purchasing a product from somebody other than the true source. That is why the touchstone of trademark infringement is "Would a reasonable consumer confuse the two products?'

It's sad, but you almost deserve a medal for pointing that out these days. A lot of people seem to be infected with the idea that a trademark is some "property" that companies race to own first, and use as a basis of lawsuits for keeping competitors from accurately describing their products.

Re:unethical

[ThomasFlip]

First of all drugs have to be approved for sale. In addition, I highly doubt your doctor/pharmacist is legally allowed to lie to you as to the purchase you're making. If you get your brakes fixed and they fail dramatically you can probably sue. Meat also needs to be inspected and labeled properly. So I don't quite see your point. Also, if I am buying drugs, getting my brakes replaced, or buying meat, I do so from a reputable store, not some cheap discount crap store.

Re:unethical

[G Fab]

This is true, WalMart has not made small business owners richer, at least the many of them whose business cannot compete against WalMArt.

I know this personally, having been involved is a specialty store in a town that got a super walmart. We just couldn't sell goods as cheaply. We got a small number of customers, upt o the last day, that would commend us for attempting to survive near walmart. We even tried to beat them on price a couple of times. But it's not possible. They can get their goods cheaper, partly though awful service and crappy quality, but also through their distribution network. Thus, the price for everything went down. Profits became leaner, but also the businesses that survived developed similarly effecient distro modela. They get their stuff cheaper now too.

Even the high quality items are cheaper, and therefore everyone (even me to some extent) is richer.

But I hate walmart anyway. It's an awful company, and they leave those empty stores and have those praking lots of hell. Nothing but ugliness all around. But their effect is remarkable.

Re:unethical

[Blkdeath]

I have to agree. I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these, let alone an entire Wii. They don't look the same, they just use the same styling.

As so many examples have been posted already, what about parents who believe they've found a third party Wiimote controller for their child's gaming system that costs significantly less than the real thing? Does a MadCatz X-Box controller look exactly the same as a genuine Microsoft S-Type controller or does it just borrow design/style cues from it? Do some third party X-Box controllers have little LCD screens on them? You bet they do!

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

And yeah, this is a dinky toy that is meant to knock off a great toy.

There we have it! This thing is a fraud and those of us who worship Nintendo feel it may hurt the Mother Company that it even exists!

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

Where I live, a number of small stores went out of business. However, WalMart grew to such an extent that they moved out of their original building to a new Super WalMart. The old WalMart building has been filled again with smaller stores and even a large and thriving Flea Market operator. It can even be said that the presence of WalMart in the community made it possible for said Flea Market to find a space to open.

I've seen the same phenomena before. Big conglomerates move into an area and overbuild retail space. When they re-size their operation, the cost of retail space drops as they vacate, making it easier for small businesses and mom and pop operators to get started. It goes in cycles.

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

It's the use of someone else's brand identity that I think is unethical. I would consider the general WiiMote design to be part of the Wii brand identity.

If you're going to huff righteously about protecting 'brand identity' I think you belong on an Ambitious Middle Managers Blog or somesuch. Certainly not on Slashdot. Particularly since this isn't even apple.slashdot.org where corrosion toward that tendency has happened over the last few years.

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

It's very clearly intentionally deceptive.

Only in the sense that it allows small children to play with a toy because it deceptively looks like a more expensive toy that an older child might have. Or are you going to say that it is cruel and deceptive that children are given play guns and not real guns?

I won't go further into the realm of Candy Cigarettes, though. I was tempted this year again to order a case of Candy Cigarettes from the company in New York who sells them mail order, to give away to the kiddies at Halloween. Except we live out in the country and no kiddies ever come to our door.

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

I tell ya, though. We've gotta DEFEND BRAND IDENTITY here. Or we'll find ourselves in a country where big corporate interests don't own big segments of our cultural heritage. I mean, we could degenerate back into a state where all the icons children are raised around aren't owned by Disney or Nintendo. Lord help us if that ever happens.

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

We have several cats here who think nothing of sleeping in the bathroom sink at night. Sometimes I have to shoo them out of the sink when I want to wash my hands.

But they also congregate around the bathtub spout when it's dripping. They kinda like water, at least when it's in manageable quantities.

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

We live in an era where advertising has become mass propaganda, and companies defend the 'value' that their advertising has created in a brand. It's a scheme of sorts.

Without strong enforcement of 'trademarks' and 'brand names' all that advertising money would be a wasted effort; what would all the marketing fucks do for a living if they couldn't pollute our mindspace with advertising?

I mean, even our holy sacred Google is based mostly on the concept of advertising. What would we do without our holy admen to tell us how to live our lives??

Yes, without trademark protection, Microsoft would market a line of Linux buttplugs in a side market, and people all over the place would just smirk when somebody proudly exclaimed that they were a 'Linux user.'

Thank GOD for vigorous well-managed brandname protection!

Re:unethical

[that this is not und]

Except for the proprietors of small town mom and pop shops it put out of business by offering lower prices

In many settings, those small mom & pop stores charge extortionate prices for their goods, and have been sucking the life blood out of local buyers for generations. The arrival of a WalMart outlet often saves poor family budgets.

It's time to stop feeling sorry for jack-up-the-prices small time operators in small towns who rip off their neighbors.

Re:unethical

[Impotent_Emperor]

Apparently, there have been problems with trademarks with AirSoft guns. See the Wikipedia article.

AirSoft guns may fall under trademark problems because they look too real, something that squirt guns may not have a problem with it, depending on how close they match. There are also a lot of old designs that are out of production, never trademarked, or so widely copied that a trademark is pointless. There are a lot of copies of Winches 1892s and 1894s, for example, as well as numerous Colt and Remington black powder revolvers.

Re:unethical

[Raenex]

Are you intentionally mispelling "confused"? Somehow I think not.

Re:unethical

[Raenex]

Yes, without trademark protection, Microsoft would market a line of Linux buttplugs in a side market, and people all over the place would just smirk when somebody proudly exclaimed that they were a 'Linux user.' Classic! Though the scary thing is I could actually see something like this happening. Reminds me of the iPod/vibrator ads.

Re:unethical

[jackbird]

I highly doubt your doctor/pharmacist is legally allowed to lie to you as to the purchase you're making.

NPR ran a piece a month or two ago about the huge medicare fraud problem in south Florida - people set up things like fake dialysis, chemotherapy, or AIDS drug centers and administer placebos which they then bill medicare many thousands of dollars for.

Re:unethical

[nickyj]

Looks like something Sony would do, pay off a company to make knock-off of competitor product that is worthless.

They don't look at all alike.

[JustShootMe]

Eh. They don't look alike at all. They share some of the same design elements, but the changes are significant enough that I wouldn't be fooled.

If someone is going to buy this while looking for a wii, they deserve what they get.

Personally, I think they just wanted to make it look like a wii because they thought "the wii is popular and maybe if we look like a wii we'll look popular too". Not "wow, if we make something that looks like a wii maybe we'll sell some by mistake".

Though I'm sure they consider that a bonus. No way do I think they're *completely* innocent.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[TheGoodSteven]

I don't think that are really trying to fool video game players though. I think they are trying to target the parents that have no knowledge about video games aside from seeing a Wii a few times and know that they are popular. I am such a person, and aside from the "Wii" on the bottom of the real controller, would be unable to tell which one was the knockoff. Certainly if someone threw one of the knock offs in my hand, my first thought would be that it was a Wii controller without thinking twice about it. And with Walmart selling these, you only have to fool a small percentage of your customers to sell a whole ton of these things.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[JustShootMe]

But I'd point out that even on the pictures, it says "football" in big letters on the bottom.

Caveat Emptor - even for people who buy at Wal-mart.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Ephemeriis]

They don't look alike at all.

Yes, they do. It's not just superficial... It's fairly obvious that the knock-off was intentionally designed to look like a Wii-mote.

the changes are significant enough that I wouldn't be fooled.

You aren't the target here.

I used to work at Electronics Boutique over the holidays, and I can guarantee that there are plenty of parents out there who would purchase this thing without a moment's hesitation - believing the whole time that they were purchasing a Wii-mote, or even the entire Wii system.

Parents used to show up with the most vague descriptions of what their child wanted... Or pictures clipped from catalogs, sales fliers, and magazines... Folks wouldn't know whether they needed a game for the PS2, Xbox, Game Cube, or computer. All they knew is that their kid said this, or it looked like that, or it had some guy with wings in it.

We had plenty of returns after Christmas because of this confusion. Folks who bought the game for entirely the wrong system...or the wrong kind of memory card...or bought some part of the system instead of the whole thing... And that was all without overly deceiving advertising or product design like this thing.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[linal]

My parents have played on a wii but if i were to show them these pics they wouldn't know the difference, i fail to to the point your trying to make? They are clearly trying to make them look like the wii controller to cash in on the brand, how many MP3 players have you seen that are in the same style as the ipod?

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[TheGoodSteven]

Thanks for pointing that out; I didn't even notice that. I change my earlier statement, they are trying to target the grandparents that have no knowledge about video games and poor eyesight.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[RobertM1968]

Mod Parent "+1 Intelligent" (and then ban him from SlashDot!!!) ;-)

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[G Fab]

I would think this was a wiimote if I saw it in a store without labelling. It's clearly supposed to look like a wiimote. I even bet that it IS a third party wiimote, just that the company couldn't get licensing or good tech or something, and retools to make this crap.

I mean, come on man. The button placement, the fake speaker, the color and shape, etc. It's a motion control game thingy. Like I said, I can tell this isn't nintendo's wiimote, but it could easily be logitech's or madcatz's. No doubt at all this is what even a nintendo employee would think at first glance.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Orange Crush]

And those returns cost the retailer money--the product was taking up shelf space, the customer went through checkout, the store got charged the transaction fee if they used a credit card . . . and now it's being returned because it wasn't what the customer thought they were buying.

I think the real party at fault here is Wal-Mart. Sure someone made a crappy game device deliberately modeled after the Wiimote. Big deal. Wal-Mart decided to carry this piece of crap so it's taking up space on shelves, causing clueless customers to come back and return it and yell at customer service staff, etc. when they could be helping other customers purchase other cheap plastic crap that won't be returned. It's a waste of Wal-Mart's money. And that's the one thing Wal-Mart *hates* wasting.

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:They don't look at all alike.

[Khaed]

It's a waste of Wal-Mart's money. And that's the one thing Wal-Mart *hates* wasting.

yep. I know someone who works there (she's a college student). They'll side with the customer IF the employee is at fault, make employees apologize even to the shittiest customers, and if a customer does something to an employee, they try and talk the employee out of doing anything. Case in point, a crazy woman randomly threw some meat at the person working in their deli, and Walmart talked the employee out of filing any sort of charges (it was a significant amount of meat and nearly hit her in the head).

but if a customer gets hurt in the store, they'll go to great lengths to avoid having to pay anything. And this is something they've gotten very good at. anyone who has ever been to a Walmart has seen the army of little shits who run around, push buggies fast, etc, just begging to get hurt or hurt someone else. They'll go back and review security tape, etc, to try and get out of being responsible for it. Not that I blame them when it comes to customer stupidity.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Tacvek]

I would think this was a wiimote if I saw it in a store without labelling. It's clearly supposed to look like a wiimote. I even bet that it IS a third party wiimote, just that the company couldn't get licensing or good tech or something, and retools to make this crap.

I mean, come on man. The button placement, the fake speaker, the color and shape, etc. It's a motion control game thingy. Like I said, I can tell this isn't nintendo's wiimote, but it could easily be logitech's or madcatz's. No doubt at all this is what even a nintendo employee would think at first glance.

Actually in this case Nintendo employees would not think that. But this is only because Nintendo has decided no make it very difficult for third parties to make replacement controllers, but encourages them to make controller accessories. This was a deliberate decision. If Nintendo's controller sales are not at risk, they feel better. The official policy seems to be that wii-mote plug-in add-ons are a bit more restricted but only to keep the number such accessories down to a manageable level. But they are definitely willing to work with third parties. I've seen a number of Wii and DS products that are not Nintendo made that have been authorized to use the Nintendo Seal.

However, if that were not the case, I agree that even Nintendo Employees would first guess a third party controller, but would rule that with a second glance. Then they would assume it is exactly what it is. There have been very similar rip-offs all the time. The last possible guess would be a pirate version of a much older Nintendo system ( think "Super Joy III" which is an NES-on-a-chip deigned in a fake n64 controller housing).

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Kingrames]

"If someone is going to buy this while looking for a wii, they deserve what they get."

But their children do not.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[JustShootMe]

Why not? Sounds like a good lesson for children.

Something akin to "measure twice, cut once".

Since when did disappointing a child become something to be avoided at all costs? PRetty much no one likes to see a disappointed child, but it's a part of life, and the sooner they learn to live with it, the better.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[trawg]

I used to work at Electronics Boutique over the holidays, and I can guarantee that there are plenty of parents out there who would purchase this thing without a moment's hesitation - believing the whole time that they were purchasing a Wii-mote, or even the entire Wii system. I'm totally sure this would happen and from what I can see it certainly seems like this is a totally obvious attempt to cash in on the confusion - but I can't shake off this quote from bash.org: " The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

If people think they're buying a Nintendo Wii and just go out and buy the first thing that looks remotely like what they want, without even doing a cursory glance for the words "Nintendo" or "Wii", I really can't feel too sorry for them. It's like a form of financial evolution - you either display adaptability or you run out of money and starve and die!

Of course, it doesn't make Wal-Mart any less lame for doing this (and the losers that built it).

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[LocalH]

how many MP3 players have you seen that are in the same style as the ipod? None, but I have seen small handheld fans that are obviously styled the same.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[failedlogic]

I was in an EB a few months ago. Lady walks into the store and she pulled out a sheet of paper and read what was written on it. She was looking for a "Sega Nintendo Sony Sonic Worms Metal Gear 15 video game". Something like that. Anyways, she had all the right brand names but the product clearly doesn't exist. Poor clerk stuck with her say, "Sorry this doesn't exist". Exchange goes on for a few minutes .... gift for her son, he was quite specific. Escalates to her shouting and she leaves 5 minutes later, no apologies.

So, will parents get duped into buying this thing. Probably. But the smarter consumer might think would Nintendo sell something like this or would it be a $200-ish gaming system?

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[failedlogic]

Guess that makes my nickname ban-proof. Or am I failing in logical reason?

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[G Fab]

exactly. It's not that it's possible for there to be a third party wiimote. It just looks like exactly like one.

And I suppose you're right. Nintendo really isn't at risk of selling less stuff as a result of this infringment. But it's still too confusing. This is a trademark violation.

Re:They don't look at all alike.

[Tacvek]

exactly. It's not that it's possible for there to be a third party wiimote. It just looks like exactly like one.

And I suppose you're right. Nintendo really isn't at risk of selling less stuff as a result of this infringement. But it's still too confusing. This is a trademark violation.

Nintendo could most certainly go after them. I'm not sure if trademark is the right avenue, but they definitely have some form of claim. The shape of the Wiimote is definitely beyond mere functionality, so it would qualify for a design patent, or a copyright. Further, I think they may have a trademark case, in so far as concepts like "trade dress" are considered trademarks, as Nintendo does use the distinctive shape of the controller as an identifying feature of the overall system.

Actually Nintendo is at some risk here. They would certainly like to see this product gone from the market. However things like the Super Joy III are much higher on Nintendo's list of priorities. Only if the product's packaging clearly indicated that it is not a Wii product, for example: "THIS IS NOT A WII REMOTE" would Nintendo be willing to completely ignore it. However, it is very difficult to fight these cheap knockoffs. So, waiting for Nintendo to have a chance to do something about it is a bad thing. Walmart should definitely pull the product.

Shit, calm down

[stratjakt]

They've been making little LCD toys that looked like console controllers since the Atari 2600.

They make lighters that look like pistols and male masturbators that look like flashlights. If you dont want to be "taken", read the package first.

Slow news day? Is this the best you can do to muster nerd rage?

Re:Shit, calm down

[RobFlynn]

You just said pretty much what I wanted to say. There's also this policy that Wal-Mart has that lets you return items that you have purchased. I think you even have 90 days to do so. If it takes you more than 90 days to realize that you bought something that's not a Wii-mote then you definitely have other problems.

As far as the design of the product, yes, it is definitely designed to look like one -- but I have to agree with the people above about packaging. Does it say "Wee mote" on it or something?

Re:Shit, calm down

[Khaed]

And you can almost always return an item, even if you've opened it and used it.

Food is a clear exception, probably DVDs/CDs (never tried), but "crappy controller thing"? I imagine you can take it back.

Personally, if you're confused by this thing and you've actually ever even seen a Wiimote, I want you sterilized before you breed.

Re:Shit, calm down

[Scudsucker]

You just said pretty much what I wanted to say. There's also this policy that Wal-Mart has that lets you return items that you have purchased. I think you even have 90 days to do so. If it takes you more than 90 days to realize that you bought something that's not a Wii-mote then you definitely have other problems.

Do they also compensate you for your wasted time and wasted gas money because they deliberately sold a crappy handheld that deliberately tries to look like a controller for a different system?

Re:Shit, calm down

[RobFlynn]

Nope, which is a huge frustration of mine.

Actually, I guess I was being a bit too nice to Wal-Mart in my post.

I had to return something to them tonight. I went to customer service, told them I needed to return the item, and handed them the receipt. The following conversation took place:

Girl: Did they not put a sticker on this at the door?
Me: No.
Girl: Well, you need to make sure they do that next time.
Me: No one told me that. And besides, when I came in there was no one at the door. It is not MY responsibility to make sure that the employees of this company do their job. It is the company's responsibility.
Girl: You're right... *processes refund*

It just seems ridiculous to me that I'm expected to know to get some kind of something from a magical return fairy before I go to the customer service desk (or were they supposed to put something on it when I actually purchased the item?)

Re:Shit, calm down

[mosb1000]

Haven't you ever heard of a security label? What's to stop just some random person from taking something off the shelf and trying to return it (WalMart has an extremely liberal return policy, you don't need a receipt or any packaging to return an item for store credit)? That's what the greeter at the front door is there for.

Re:Shit, calm down

[RobFlynn]

Oh, I've heard of a security label. But this didn't have anything like that. It was just a pack of socks. I realized that I had bought the wrong kind. If no one is working the front door, then I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

Re:Shit, calm down

[wrook]

They make lighters that look like pistols and male masturbators that look like flashlights.

No wonder I can't see anything... It's not a flashlight...

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:Shit, calm down

[Kredal]

On the plus side, if the WalMart employee can't tell the difference, a real Wii remote could be the "identical" item that you recieve in trade!

Re:Shit, calm down

[OneoFamillion]

I guess you'll just have to comfortable with the darkness... You know, let your senses adjust to it :P

Re:Shit, calm down

[Riktov]

If you can't see anything because you've lost your eyesight, you're obviously using it correctly... perhaps too much.

Typical Walmart sales

[GregPK]

Seriously, this is very typical of Walmart. What do you expect from a company who's own employees get in the way more than the customers.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[Salgat]

When you're some parent who has no idea what a Wii is and vaguely remembers what the controller looked like, the possibility of grabbing this without second thought isn't surprising.

Non Story

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a self-contained LCD game, and Wal-Mart has a whole aisle of cheap games like this. It's not with the video games but rather in the toy section with the board games and dolls. Someone in China decided the Wiimote look would distinguish it from the other LCD crap. It's like the Famiclones that look like other popular consoles. If you buy a cheap LCD game and somehow think you've bought a Wii, then you probably needed to do a little more research before leaving the house.

Re:Non Story

[mauthbaux]

It's not with the video games but rather in the toy section with the board games and dolls.

Hate to point this out here, but not all wal-marts stock their stores according to the standard motif. There's 2 wal-marts in my town here (State College, PA) and while one of them has it with the knockoffs and board games, the other store stocks it on the rack across the aisle from the Wii games*. There's a clear intention to deceive.

If you buy a cheap LCD game and somehow think you've bought a Wii, then you probably needed to do a little more research before leaving the house.

That would be great as long as you were fluent in the local language. I've known many immigrant families who have been fooled simply because the packaging wasn't in a language they could immediately understand. To further the problem, once these people realize that they've made an error, returning the item is an exercise in frustration. Explaining the reason for the return when the bigoted customer service drone doesn't even try to understand you is an act akin to public humiliation. Stores are more than happy to take your money, but they don't like to give it back.

These types of items are designed with deceit as their purpose; taking advantage of the gullible and those too embarrassed to defend themselves. In a way, it reminds me of the penis pills. It's something you purchase in either wild hope or simple ignorance. Even though it's defective, getting a return is totally unfeasible (no refund from the supplier, and the gatekeeper to recompense requires that you humiliate yourself).

*at leas that's where it was when I was there 2 days ago.

Re:Non Story

[danlock4]

Someone in China decided the Wiimote look would distinguish it from the other LCD crap. TFA says that it's "Produced by a company called ToyQuest in Los Angeles", which still doesn't invalidate your sentence...

Re:Non Story

[ChaoticLimbs]

The point is that a significant amount of their design and marketing has been used to intentionally mislead customers into buying their product, instead of providing a decent product that customers would wish to purchase based on its merits. This type of thing should be illegal. If your only path to customers is through deception, you have no right to profit from business. Capitalism should not include deception. Ideal capitalism is competition based on merit at market prices. This is not that.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[ottolinkfan]

When you're some parent who has no idea what a Wii is and vaguely remembers what the controller looked like, the possibility of grabbing this without second thought isn't surprising.

I am not a parent, but if/when I am, I can't imagine I would ever buy a product for my kid without knowing what it was. Seems pretty irresponsible to me. Besides, one of them clearly says "Wii" on the remote and the other does not.

Imitation

[MECC]

Imitation is the sincerest form of ripp off.

It looks like a great product...

[distantbody]

...although I think my next game system will be a Mini Polystation 3. Thanks Dr Ashen!!!

Re:It looks like a great product...

[tepples]

...although I think my next game system will be a Mini Polystation 3. Some earlier PolyStation products have been Famiclones, or third-party consoles compatible with most of the NES library (or at least more than Wii Virtual Console). Why are these newer PolyStation systems more like a Game & Watch?

Re:It looks like a great product...

[Just Some Guy]

"And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny!"

And your point is....?

[wickerprints]

"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.

You know, given the intelligence level of your average Wal-Mart employee, that latter statement isn't really saying a whole lot. Then again, much the same could be said of your average Wal-Mart consumer. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Re:And your point is....?

[Asky314159]

Seriously. One says "Wii" on the front and the other one doesn't. One has an LCD screen on it and the other doesn't. Duh.

Heh..

[Duncan Blackthorne]

I forsee a possible Cease and Desist Letter in Wal-Mart's future. ;) What a bunch of asshats!

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[Dunbal]

Not only that - the idea is to shut your kid up. If you can do it for $14.99 and the kid thinks he got a Wii, all the better.

Non-sequitur headline

[Just Some Guy]

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.

I also saw poorly made jeans at ShopKo, and one time I bought shampoo from Wegmans that smelled just like a famous name brand but wasn't. So what? It's not like either of those chains made those goods.

What did Wal-Mart have to do with the story other than carrying that product among tens of thousands of others? Would we be reading "Costco's Terrible Wii Knock-Offs" if the author had shopped somewhere else that day? There are lots of reasons why people don't like shopping at Wal-Mart, but this is a pretty dumb one.

no sympathy... it's wal-mart after all

[eagl]

Come on... This is wal-mart we're talking about. Who goes to wal-mart to buy *good* stuff? wal-mart is all about large quantities of cheap stuff, end of story. It's a great place to buy cheap or bulk items... I shop there all the time for generic food items and anything disposable that I need in bulk (kleenex, cleaning supplies, etc). If you want to find something really good at wal-mart, you MUST look for the exact name brand and even then you have to carefully check model numbers to make sure you're not getting a cheaper wal-mart only version. You know, the wal-mart equivalent of those crappy dell soundblasters that don't work with anything but dell drivers and which had ultra-cheap and noisy components. I had a drill like that... My Dad had one from Sears and it had a metal body, durable rubberized, grips, etc. The same drill from wal-mart (same model number but with an "a" on the end) had a plastic body and the grip cracked within a week.

The point is, if you're going into wal-mart expecting to get high quality anything, you're either an optimist or a retard and deserve to get what you find there.

Re:no sympathy... it's wal-mart after all

[lazuli42]

That's right. Wal*Mart has nothing to offer but shit. In fact, I bought my Genuine Nintendo Wii there and it was absolute junk compared to the one my friend bought at GameStop. And the games my neighbor bought were more fun--even his copy of Zelda was more fun than mine. Dang Wal*Mart.

Re:no sympathy... it's wal-mart after all

[Moodie-1]

Too true. While I do do a lot of my shopping at Wal-Mart (because of the low prices, natch!) I still occasionally get stuck with junk. Such as the $5 scientific calculator I've got in front of me right now. It's branded as 'Le World' and has a 'made in China' sticker on the back. I bought it a few months ago thinking "Hey, a really small sci-calc, and at a great price, too!" Well, it didn't take more than two days for the 'hinged' cover to fall off, which didn't bother me too much. What did bother me, however, was that a couple of months later the printing on the unit's buttons started wearing off! Now I've got a calculator that works - if only I can remember which button does what! Buyer beware!

Re:no sympathy... it's wal-mart after all

[Lumpy]

I do. the prices of new Wii and DS games at walmart are the same price as the USED prices at EB games.

Re:no sympathy... it's wal-mart after all

[eagl]

You prove my point. You bought a specific name-brand item sold pretty much everywhere. It probably has the exact same model number as your friend's one too. On the other hand, if you had been unlucky you might have found that the wal-mart version didn't include one accessory or another. Like a hookup cable or something. Wal-mart versions, even brand name ones, are often slightly different than the otherwise identical thing you buy elsewhere because that's how they can offer lower prices. They cut corners everywhere possible.

You can bet your ass if wal-mart could cut the price by $1 by having the manufacturer leave out something like the video cables, they'd do it. Most people wouldn't realize it until they got home and then they'd go right back to wal-mart to buy the necessary cables. I've been hit by that too, most recently with a $5 telephone I purchased at wal-mart that didn't include a phone cable. Who the heck sells phones without a cable? Of course I have a dozen in my spare cable container, but that's only because every other phone I've ever purchased has included a cable.

Buyer beware at wal-mart.

It is called 'passing off'...

[Undead Ed]

And it is going to land Wal-Mart and ToyQuest in court.

In view of the fact that the device is of such poor quality almost ensures Nintendo will be able to get an interlocutory injunction within days.

Wal-Mart really should know better - I am surprised.

Ed

Re:It is called 'passing off'...

[kalirion]

Nah, Nintendo should just stop selling its products through Wal-Mart.

Grandma...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you buy me a Wii-mote, please? Here's a picture!

-Intermission-

What the fuck Grandma?! This is shit, I'm never calling you again.

Walmart: At least their hiring the gullible yet unloved elderly.

walmart employees

[pavera]

Well, just because walmart employees can't tell them apart doesn't mean your average 6 year old can't.

Personally, I have no problem telling them apart and I've only seen a Wii once for about 5 minutes...

Sure this is probably a violation of some intellectual property law or other... but aren't we always complaining about those laws and how stupid and unnecessarily restrictive they are? We defended Lindows and said "you'd have to be an idiot to confuse Lindows with Windows". Personally I'm from the camp of idiocy gets what it deserves. If you're too dumb or ignorant to tell these 2 devices apart, then you deserve to have your money taken. I know my 8 year old brother wouldn't be fooled by the knock off, so why should anyone? Or are we all willing to say that the average adult is dumber than an average 8 year old? And, if that is what we're saying HOW IS THAT OK OR ACCEPTABLE?!?

Re:walmart employees

[Cheapy]

It's a violation of trademark.

I'm pretty sure we don't complain about that one.

Re:walmart employees

[pavera]

I didn't know you could "trademark" a thing. I thought trademarks were IP on a word or phrase. The word "Wii" does not appear anywhere on the "knock off", and I don't even think the two devices look very similar. Unless you can "trademark" "a small white device with buttons to wirelessly control a device", but I bet 90% of TV remotes would violate that "trademark". Further, the "knock off" wouldn't violate it because it isn't wirelessly controlling anything.

Foreign imports

[fmarkham]

Damn those cheap foreign knock-offs of quality American designs! Oh wait...

So what!?

[Lethyos]

Who cares if some fool is so easily taken by this product. If someone could be so stupid to plunk down their hard-earned cash without understanding what they are paying for in the first place then they should suffer the consequnces. Promoting nannyism to prevent dumb behavior will solve nothing. Idiocy has to hurt or people will never stop being idiots.

Re:So what!?

[Romancer]

So am I the first to see this article and think "Wow, darwin for consumers!"
The stupid will have to return this or lose money so they will suffer for their stupidity. Good.

Re:So what!?

[JustShootMe]

Egg-zactly.

There is certainly predatory behavior in consumerland which needs to be stopped. This ain't it.

In my view, if they made it look *exactly* like a wiimote and named it the "xii" or the "nii", then I would say, yeah, we need to do something about that. But as it stands? Let the buyer beware.

Re:So what!?

[zenetik]

In most cases, I would agree. But considering that Walmart seems to have a very large customer base among the elderly, I think it's fairly certain that some grandparents on Social Security, who don't know a monitor from a mouse, are going to proudly buy one of these as a gift for a grandchild thinking it is that cool game system they saw on TV and learn too late, when they see the look of disappointment on little Johnny's face, that it isn't the real deal.

Re:So what!?

[reddburn]

So someone who gets a picture cut out of a magazine so that they "know what to get" but don't have time to research it because they're working two jobs and shopping at MaoMart for "great deals" deserves to get shafted? Not everyone works at a job where they've got time to play on the internet.

Re:So what!?

[orkysoft]

This makes me think of those non-poisonous snakes that have the same kind of stripes as a poisonous snake species, so they benefit from the deterrence effect without needing to invest in poison glands themselves.

Re:So what!?

[CAR912]

Red touches yellow: you're a dead fellow;
Red touches black: you're okay, Jack.

I'm don't know who this "Jack" person is, but I suppose the mnemonic will help anyone who remembers it.

("You don't know Jack" pun unintended)

Re:So what!?

[Pedersen]

Actually, this little tidbit comes from snake handlers at a local snake and animal farm: There is only one accurate means to tell if a snake is poisonous or not before it bites, and that's the shape of the pupils of the eyes. If they are shaped like a cat's, it is a poisonous snake. Otherwise not.

Every other mnemonic will eventually fail you.

Of course, if you're able to distinguish the shape of the pupils, you're too close for it to matter anyway :)

Re:So what!?

[DeadChobi]

...but how does it taste?

Re:So what!?

[Itninja]

Now, IANAL, but I am pretty sure that marketing something that is overtly designed in such a way so as to confuse consumers into buying your product, and not your competitors, is illegal. It would be like selling a Linux distro designed to look very similar to Windows XP, and putting it in a green box with a similar font, etc. And then calling it "Mike Rowe Soft Lindows", or some such. I bet M$ would be on you like stink on rice.

What i would like to see is this fake Wii-esque games packaging. I would bet it has Wii fonts and Wii colors, and maybe even a Wii-sounding name ("Whee! Football" maybe)

Re:So what!?

[futuresheep]

There is only one accurate means to tell if a snake is poisonous or not before it bites, and that's the shape of the pupils of the eyes. If they are shaped like a cat's, it is a poisonous snake. Otherwise not.

There's an exception to every rule. In this case, it's the coral snake which is also the subject of this rhyme. It's poisonous and has round pupils. The coral snake is a member of the cobra family, and IIRC all of them have round pupils.

Re:So what!?

[Tablizer]

without understanding what they are paying for in the first place then they should suffer the consequnces. Promoting nannyism to prevent dumb behavior will solve nothing.

But you do realize that allowing such rewards manipulative companies and thus creates more of them. That does not bother you?

Re:So what!?

[Shajenko42]

I've got a better mnemonic:

If it looks like a snake, get the fuck away.

Re:So what!?

[donscarletti]

I don't know what snakes are like where you live but I know that the Oxyuranus (taipan) and Pseudonaja (brown snake) families, which between them make up most of the worlds most poisonous snakes and all of the top 3 most poisonous, have round pupils. Taipans tend to be readily identifiable, being notably longer and thinner than anything else in the area that they live in, but brown snakes are often confused with the less poisonous (but often deadly) black snakes or even tiger snakes since they vary in colour and pattern within the species almost as much as between species. As I understand it, at least down here, the only way to tell them apart for sure is to count the scales, the number of which is consistent within a species and generally narrows it down far enough to know if it is toxic and which antivenom one should use. Otherwise, you should probably just stay away from snakes which you can't identify.

Re:So what!?

[LordKronos]

Thats a terrible mnemonic. Why?

Red touches yellow: you're okay fellow;
Red touches black: you're dead, Jack.

This version is just as memorable as what you quoted, and it makes exactly as much sense (but will get you killed). In fact, it almost makes more since, since those type of mnemonics often have the extremely bad outcome as the second line, not the first. A mnemonic where the order is pretty arbitrary is a terrible mnemonic. You have to invest just as much effort to remember which version is correct as you would to just remember the thing it's trying to help you remember.

Re:So what!?

[gstoddart]

So am I the first to see this article and think "Wow, darwin for consumers!"
The stupid will have to return this or lose money so they will suffer for their stupidity. Good.

Wow. How's the view from up there? Is the air a little thin? Does looking down on us all make you dizzy sometimes?

Seriously, why the need to conflate stupidity with being uninformed about something? Not every parent/grand parent/aut/uncle is a gamer and knows what any of this shit is. Further, not everybody cares. If a reputable (*cough*) company like Wal Mart is selling it, some people might actually think it's not some blatant rip-off, but an actual legitimate product.

Would your grandmother or mother know what a Wiimote is and how to find one, or would they be classed in the category of stupid? I assume you might take umbrage at me suggestion they might be.

Lots of people know lots of things you know nothing about. It's awfully arrogant to accuse everyone who doesn't know what you know of being stupid. Cut the consumer some slack -- not knowing about something like video games and kids toys knocked-off to look like something else, that's hardly a character flaw.

Cheers

Re:So what!?

[that this is not und]

I bet M$ would be on you like stink on rice.


Stink on rice? Are you brewing rice wine in that jar under the radiator in your rented room, or what??

Re:So what!?

[that this is not und]

Big deal. Grandparents have been buying terrible lame presents for grandkids for generations. Little Johnny is just relieved that it isn't another itchy sweater that mom will force him to wear to church.

Re:So what!?

[Lunzo]

I agree that the mnemonic is terrible. What about black touches yellow?

I think the earlier post of "If it's a snake GTFO", although modded funny was good advice. I've also heard that most snakes are more afraid of you, than you are of them, so make a bit of noise while backing away and it will probably run off.

Re:So what!?

[orkysoft]

Snakes cannot hear you make noise.

Re:So what!?

[MageWyn]

I hate to nitpick, but this really bothers me. Snakes aren't poisonous; They're venomous.

Poison = Harmful if you ingest the substance
Venom = Only harmful if it is injected

From a quick google search:

Any type of animal that injects a toxin into your body is venomous. If you touch or ingest a toxin from a plant or animal and become sick then it is poisonous. Snakes that inject toxins from fangs and the two species of Helodermatid lizards are venomous while plants, amphibians, and fungi (mushrooms) are all poisonous.

Re:So what!?

[dank zappingly]

Yeah or someone's grandmother buys one by mistake because she is nearsighted/misinformed by an employee/isn't as up on the attributes of the newest game consoles as the average slashdotter.

Re:So what!?

[Itninja]

Yikes. A guy tries to bring a little dry wit to the party, and see what happens? I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can't teach him new tricks.

Re:So what!?

[dintech]

Based on your sig, do think the grail was in Soviet Russia?

Re:How can you confuse them?

[MMaestro]

Its easy to confuse if you're not familiar with the Wiimote, and the fact that we're looking at COMPARISON pictures manes it pretty easy to see the differences.

That said, if you're a clueless soccer mom and a Wal-Mart employee comes up to you and says "we don't have the Wii in stock, but this is just like it", chances are you're gonna buy it cause you can't find an real Nintendo Wii before Christmas.

The magic of "Something like it."

[xC0000005]

I would imagine that most people who buy this don't honestly think this is a nintendo wii. They think it looks a lot like one, and for kids toys so often that's "enough". The logic is twisted, but if you're a parent who can barely afford the $15 for this toy and your child wants a wii, well, it's a delusion that gets bought into. You can't afford the real thing. You can afford a cheap knock off, and "it's kind of the same thing, right?"

No. It isn't. That doesn't really enter the equasion.

Re:The magic of "Something like it."

[Crizp]

yes I took the poster seriously until that last word. Now I don't know what to mean.

Re:The magic of "Something like it."

[Xtravar]

I would imagine that most people who buy this don't honestly think this is a nintendo wii. They think it looks a lot like one, and for kids toys so often that's "enough". You brought up a good point there, but I think you failed to bring it into perspective.

How is this any different than a fake cell phone toy that can't dial, or a toy gun that can't shoot, or a toy computer, or a toy sword?

Sure, this toy sucks and is capitalizing on the success of the Wii, but most people aren't going to buy it thinking it's a Wii. Maybe some family has a Wii and they want the little brother who's too young to have something similar so he doesn't feel left out. Or it's a toy to tide over an imaginative child until his family gets the real thing.

The point is that this is a "toy" and not the "real thing" and, by definition, that's pretty much what a toy is. Try remembering what it was like to be a kid with an imagination, and from that perspective it doesn't seem like such a horrible concept.

Re:The magic of "Something like it."

[magisterx]

There's a possibility that some parents will think that, but keep in mind that most parents who are harried, busy people and unless they are gamers themselves may never have taken a close look at a wiimote, much less gotten to know them. No gamer would ever be fooled, but I bet a decent number of parents and even more childless aunts and uncles for instance would not be able to tell the two apart.

Re:The magic of "Something like it."

[LordVader717]

The point is that this is a "toy" and not the "real thing" and, by definition, that's pretty much what a toy is. Try remembering what it was like to be a kid with an imagination, and from that perspective it doesn't seem like such a horrible concept.

So they can pretend to be playing a game where they can pretend to be doing something?
No, that isn't entertaining, and someone must have surprisingly low expectations of their child if they think they will.
Even very young children will be able to tell that what they got isn't what they wanted, but a ingeniously boring piece of crap.
Nothing against parents who can't afford to buy their children a Wii, but this thing is probably the most extreme caricature of a disappointing gift.

Sure, I remember what it was like to be a kid and play round with cheap toys and reap countless hours of entertainment, but I also remember being bored like shit over cheap LCD games that gave me a headache. And no, I couldn't use them as a sword/Frisbee/house.

More Spin...

[LWATCDR]

Yea it gets you points to bash Walmart on Slashdot.
So why is everybody posting how bad Walmart is for selling this.
ToyQuest out of L.A is the manufacture. So where is the venom for them? Is this a Walmart exclusive? Has anyone checked to see if Sears, Target or those stupid little carts in the middle of every mall is selling them?
I am not a huge Walmart fan but this is so slanted that it is just silly.
Sorry folks it looks sort of like a Wiimote and costs all of $10. I don't think this is anymore of a ripe off than the toy cellphones that look like a Razer.
Good grief.

Re:More Spin...

[J-1000]

I don't think this is anymore of a ripe off than the toy cellphones that look like a Razer.

Except for the fact that a Wiimote is about one thousand times more distinct looking than a Razer. To the uninitiated a Razer looks just like every other cell phone.

Re:More Spin...

[LWATCDR]

Does it say Wii or Nintendo on the package? I saw the picture and to me it just doesn't look that much like a Wiimote.
Of course then you have the issue of the title implying that this is a Walmart product instead of blasting the company that made it. Yea it is a crappy product that is trying to cash in on the popularity of the Wii. Is it misleading? Well only if your an idiot or under the age of about 8.
It just isn't that big of a deal and really never should have made it on to Slashdot.

From The Same People

[szyzyg]

Who brought the Popstation into this world
http://groups.imeem.com/PhwrOdIK/video/q92O96zd/popstation_review/

How does this even work?

[ironring2006]

Ok, forget the legal aspects of this being an obvious rip-off of the Wiimote. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how anyone would use the motion function on this thing when the screen is ON what you are moving. I mean seriously, it would be like having to pick up your laptop up off your desk and lift it up and to the left if you wanted to move your mouse to the file menu. Not only is your pointer moving on the screen, but your whole point of reference is also moving. It's easy to focus on a tv or computer screen because it is STATIONARY. Say you have to tilt it forward to move the pointer up. Well, now your screen is tilted away from you and you can't see it. I mean, when they come up with these cheap knock-off toys, do they just go straight from some marketing guys head straight into production? Surely someone out there would at least try to use it once and realize how stupid this is. I guess the idea is, is that it doesn't actually have to be functional to sell, it just has to look like a Wiimote, yeah, make it white with a d-pad on it and you can hold it in your hand. Brilliant.

Re:How does this even work?

[Crizp]

I mean, when they come up with these cheap knock-off toys, do they just go straight from some marketing guys head straight into production? Surely someone out there would at least try to use it once and realize how stupid this is.

That'a what I've wondered as well. And I thought it can't be like this -- the thing has to be designed in some CAD software, now that takes... well, an hour or so. Then molds have to be made for the plastic, the program for the thing written, interfacing with the LCD, the buttons must work... surely, someone must have tried this thing before it being put into production. Several must have, in fact. But still they make the damn thing. That's why I've come to the conclusion that Chinese knock-off producers are rotten to the core with every single person that came in touch with the product thinking "wow, this will give us 1000% earnings when the gullible Walmartians buy this crap lol!"

Re:How does this even work?

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Realistically, I imagine that one of the few excuses for such a thing would be that you'd buy it to silence a very small child, one young enough to want a Wii, but not old enough to really know the difference -- you know, like a child young enough to not know the difference between actually playing an arcade game at the pizza parlor, and just poking the buttons while the attract mode is playing through? Not that I'm excusing HellMart in any way for this sort of thing. I find it to be a reprehensible form of marketing.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[reddburn]

Far more likely than your utter slam of everyone else in the US (which tells us nothing more than that you think you're better than everyone else) is what the GP said - they're relying on brand confusion and poverty to sell something that looks like a Wii to people who can't afford the real thing and whose kids want a game system. Have you ever been that kid? Ever wondered why Christmas was a big deal in everyone else's house but not yours?

I have, and looking back with a kid of my own, I feel worse for my parents for picking up the knockoff than for myself for getting it. I can't imagine how they felt when they realized it wasn't worth fifty cents and broke the first time I used it. Blame Walmart for targeting desperate parents who want to do something really good for their kids but end up getting cheap crap instead of what they thought they were getting. We can't all be as wonderfully gifted as you, and an eighty hour workweek at a demanding physical job can wreak havoc on a mom who's out doing her last minute shopping.

Think of self-important, critical dickheads like you and realize that while your witty repartee might amuse you for a moment, it doesn't do a goddamn thing to help. Realize that if everyone you meet is "retarded," it may not be them. It may be you.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[Adradis]

Yes, but your smarter then the average Joe, I'd guess. Lot of parents have no clue what anything looks like, other then the vague description. Remember, this is the TV/Videogame/Myspace generation of kids, with a lot less parental involvement then should be there. D:

Knock-offs?

[Trogre]

...are complete and utter crap, to the point of being unplayable. ...fake speaker on the front.

Sounds like they really did do their homework.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[EtoilePB]

First time I've ever wished I still had mod points, and said so. +1 for truth.

I was that kid, too. (Lucky for my parents I loved books best, and at least library sales are more likely to provide something valuable than Wal-Mart crap aisles.)

Yawn.

[n6kuy]

Even if you're confused by the similar appearance, the $2.98 price should clue you in that this is NOT a Wii...

Re:Yawn.

[mark-t]

Indeed it should... for anyone with a clue. Oh wait, this is walmart shoppers and employees we are talking about.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[cheater512]

The GP's comment doesnt apply to everyone in the US. Just the majority. :)

"Nobody ever went broke...

[jpellino]

... underestimating the intelligence of the American buying public." is as true here as ever.

Well, the first thing *I* noticed...

[Chris Mattern]

...was that the real Wiimote said "Wii" on it. In damn big letters.

Chris Mattern

Re:How can you confuse them?

[VGPowerlord]

That is until you consider how much the Wii, its games, and manuals stress that you should use the wrist strap... which the clone does not appear to have.

knock offs

[H0D_G]

do you have any idea how many of these are sold in toy stores? it's a common thing- from knock off tamagotchis to 'gamestations' that cost $20. it's a total non-story. it would be a story if walmart had advertised these items as wii accessories, but they didn't.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like somebody didn't like unwrapping the big box to find a Sorny PolyStation.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Whiteox]

Even though there's no Walmart around here (for about 10,000k or so), there are certainly stores that sell crap.
What should annoy everyone is that valuable raw materials are being used to make this crap (often unusable) that shouldn't be made in the first place.
Simple example: I can buy a chinese dustpan on a stick and brush for $2.00. It can't be used though as the pan's edge has been warped during manufacture and it would be pointless trying to use it. There's about 10 of them, lined up, ready for sale.

In other words, some factory in China is pumping out this useless product, some importer/wholesaler is paying for the transport and a distributor sends them out and consumers are supposed to buy it (I don't think the store sold any).
That translates into throwing away oil.

What is needed in situations like this is some kind of authority with enough clout to stop or even prevent material wastage on products that just can't be used.

There should be a form of quality control in the design and manufacture that is definitely missing in certain parts of the world.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[edward2020]

And if you can give your kid a 5cent paper sack and tell them it's a bicycle helmet, all the better :)

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[Salgat]

Well, in this case you aren't the parent, so you don't have to worry about that happening to you.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[Schlaegel]

This was my thought. I have been looking for a look-alike Wii controller for my two year old so she won't feel slighted and jealous when the older sibling is playing the Wii. A good cheap look-alike is a great product. I don't even need batteries, just movable buttons. Thank you Wal-Mart.

PS.
If I showed a small photo of a toy cell-phone to a Wal-Mart employee, then the employee would likely direct me to the real cell-phone aisle; this isn't bad, it's just the employee using common sense to answer the question. Also, who asks any big box store employee anything, and expects a good answer.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[skoaldipper]

first the typical American is incredibly stupid. This will easily confuse a huge number of people, just like yield signs and roundabouts.

Actually, you make a very good point.

Nike is an American company using Greek mythology as a trademark. When I lived in Shanghai, I paid $6 at the marketplace for the best pair of Nike shoes I ever owned. As an American, I suppose I could have just waited until I got back to Walmart in Texas. However, I figured, why not just go directly to the source, cutting out the middle man entirely. And, it only cost me several thousand for the price of a plane ticket. I have no regrets. Damn good pair of sneakers if you ask me - except for one glued on swoosh that didn't survive the first washing.

walmart hate

[timmarhy]

blah blah yet more sensless walmart hate, from people who like to think they are "better" then anyone who shops or works at walmart.

this thing is NOT a wii knock off, that's just a lie pure and simple because what you see in the picture is the whole product. it's just a hand held game that resembles the wii mote a bit - there isn't actually any gaming console with it.

no one is going to think this thing is an actual wii.

i'm sure this guy pissed his pants in excitement thinking he has caught walmart in some big bad act of public deception, but lets be honest - this is like claiming my home theater remote is a wii knock off just because it's white and kind of shaped like the wii mote.

Re:walmart hate

[mark-t]

no one is going to think this thing is an actual wii.

NEVER underestimate the potential for human stupidity. It wouldn't surprise me one iota if some people mistook this for an actual wii. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to mockingly laugh at those people either. There's an old saying about a fool and his money...

hmm

[ImTheDarkcyde]

This is any different than Target labelling all of its store-brand shampoo with the exact same color and styles, and placing them right next to the competing product? If the consumer isn't smart enough to read, fuckum, there's a sucker born every minute.

Re:hmm

[xenocide2]

No, it's like store brand shaving cream designed to mimic the branding of expensive shampoos, and placed nearby. In your example, there's at least a good chance you'll walk home with shampoo.

Lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

[Jim in Buffalo]

I can't imagine NIntendo letting this company pull this crap for very long. At the same time, anyone who think they're getting a Wii-mote for $15 that doesn't actually say "Wii" on it, well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Ironlenny]

This man deserves the ASCII Finger Award.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[niteice]

Perhaps next time, people should try reading the packaging instead of blindly purchasing something because it "looks" like the right thing.

Clearly you have never been in a Wal-Mart during the holiday rush.

Wow...

[NoMaster]

Nerd-rage at its finest. This is nothing new.

Whatever happened to the fine hacker tradition of hunting down disposable toy techno-crap to play with, laugh at, or try to install Linux on? Don't people climb out of their moms' basement, emerging blinky and bleary-eyed into the gaze of the big burning ball in the sky, and head off to the nearest it'll-be-gone-next-week cheapjack Chinese-junk-import store to search for crap like this anymore?

Don't tell me - you all sit back and wait for the brave, brave few to venture into the outside world, find the latest $5 digital photo frame or $10 all-region all-format DVD player, and generate enough buzz that it gets picked up by ThinkGeek where you can mail-order it for a 200% markup over the junkstore price. Amirite?

If you had ventured out, you'd have seen junk like this everywhere.

Check out this guy's video reviews. You too could be that funny - if only you'd previously known crap like this existed.

Re:Wow...

[Lehk228]

this thing looks likt it could be hacked pretty well actually. the screen is about the size of a GB Micro so you could possibly insert the guts for a GB Micro into it and wire up the buttons

Watch what you buy. Simple.

[HumanSockPuppet]

As sleazy as the practice of inciting brand-confusion to produce profit may be, it is ultimately the responsibility of the consumer to do adequate research before plowing ahead with a purchase.

Sure... Because...

[NeuroManson]

Only someone whose head has been caved in with a crowbar cannot tell the difference between the display on an LCD and the actual console and an actual video display.

Gawd you all disgust me with your stupidity.

Oh, and on the subject...

[NeuroManson]

Where's the cries of anger against similar (such as Lik Sang) retailers selling knockoff SNES consoles and N64 CD-ROM readers so they could pile a ton of roms into a CD and play their N-64s for free, just because they thought the variety available weren't worth paying for?

So like.,there really IS a market for pop station?

[denzacar]

So like... there really IS a market for pop stations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvXleDSkB-g

Poli Stations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a6lxiB1b_I

and Neo Double Games http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SNv2xEyyeg out there?

A fraudulent market for uninformed and stupid people, but still - a market in which such products fulfil a demand?

I mean... I know that the sale of such products is based on presumed stupidity/confusion but that it actually works that way? (o_O)?

For some reason, thinking about those fine specimens of stupid people out there, forking out money for such products instead of giving it to me, makes me kind of... sad.

offs!

[pbjones]

one is a handheld game, one is a controller for a larger console game unit, one does have Wii printed on it, and one doesn't, yer, it must be so hard for people to tell the difference. Get a life, the 'article' is as crappy as the game it dosen't describe.

Nothing new

[GigsVT]

Walmart has been doing this crap for a while.

I needed a switch, and no one else in town had a switch that wasn't also a firewall/NAT and all that bullshit (small town).

I wound up at walmart, and I was surprised to see what looked like a Netgear switch on the shelf. Turns out it was a HUB (yes, a hub in 2006). They were selling these 100mbit hubs in boxes that looked exactly like netgear boxes, except it wasn't netgear. I don't think Netgear has made a hub in 5 years.

Wii Fanboy Mad

[DavidD_CA]

This blogger is a Wii fanboy who runs a Nintendo blog for About.com. It's no surprise that he's a little miffed that someone created a handheld game that resembles the Wii controller.

I couldn't find any of these devices online. Not at Walmart.com, or Amazon.com, or ToyQuest.com, or even eBay. I looked because I wanted to see what the box looked like.

I'm sure they were inspired by the Wii controller, but to say that people are confusing this for the Wii is rediculous. And to make Wal*Mart look like the bad guy is silly.

I have a hunch that this device sells at about the same price of other ToyQuest games ($5-10). And if that's true, then anyone who buys this thinking they are buying a Wii deserves it.

If someone can show me that this device's box looks like the Wii box, and that the name of this product resembes "Wii", and that the device sells for $100+, then I'll take it all back. I'll even take two out of three.

...huh

[mikesd81]

resembles a Wiimote so closely that even Wal-Mart employees can't tell them apart in a picture.

....The wiimote doesn't have a screen.....if you can't notice that then, well, u shouldn't be on the sales floor.

Great! How much?!

[PenguinX]

My 19 month old son loves the Wii. Unfortunately he's also 19 months old and destroys everything he touches, and being that the actual wii controllers cost an arm-and-a leg it may be worth buying if it is cheap enough just so that he feels like he's involved.

Re:Only one thing to say

[TechnoPops]

Huh, would have never figured Barbara Walters had a Slashdot account.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[mstahl]

While it is questionable to make a device that is obviously a knockoff of the Wiimote, it is also wrong to place the blame 100% on Walmart or the manufacturer of the item for a situation in which the buyer did not properly research their purchase. Anyone who has done their research will be able to discern it from the real thing in seconds.

It's probably not parents that are going to get duped. Somewhere some kid is going to see this and yell "I want that!" over and over again until their parent caves, whether the parent is knowledgeable about these things or not. Whether it's walmart's fault or not it's still pretty underhanded to try to piggyback on someone else's brand recognition. That's how law suits get started!

Morons?

[Thrymm]

Ok sure its unethical, but what is this knockoff being sold as? What is its name, and ffs, anyone with half a brain knows the Wii is a bigger box, and the wiimote is just the damn controller. I have no sympathy for people who are willing to spend 250-600 bux on one of these new consoles and think they are getting a full functioning Wii in a screen on a lookalike wiimote for whatever price and then are pissed to find out its not a Wii. Morons, and the Wal-Mart employees are equally dumb but it isnt their fault they are there to push the Mart's agenda like Best Buy employees have to force Monster Cables on you.

Aaaand now they just made even more money

[Kabuthunk]

The amusing part is that because this has been posted on Slashdot, their sales are probably going to go up at least a bit due to people now wanting to get it to see just how truly bad it really is. Not from this wallet though... I have better things to spend money on :P.

It's like those N64 controller knockoff games

[FauxReal]

They were huge a few years ago... it connects to your tv w/ a mono rca a/v cable and has knockoff nintendo 8-bit games on it. The very same games that were on those 100-in-1 nintendo cartridges that came out when the 1st gen nintendo was new.

Lead

[theurge14]

Tell them you bought it for your kid and it contains lead. Also make sure to mention you know the mailing address of your local CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates.

Then do nothing. That should be enough.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[dotgain]

Nice appeal to emotion there...
It's not like a fake Wii is going to put a kid at risk of head injuries.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[MMaestro]

Except the Wiimote doesn't ship with the wrist strap attached.

They look NOTHING like each other...

[Joce640k]

"The real Wiimote is on the right in this picture"

http://nintendo.about.com/od/industrynews/ig/Nintendo-Wiimote-Knockoff/Nintendo-Wiimote-Knockoff.--fE.htm

You don't say? You mean the one which says "wii" on it, is twice the size, and doesn't have the big black LCD screen at the top.

Re:They look NOTHING like each other...

[MaryAlan]

Umm... the real Wiimote is actually smaller than the knockoff by just a little bit. Maybe you confused them.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[DDLKermit007]

I was...once...when I was 12, and broke...never...fucking...again...Uggghhhhh...

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's capitalism for you. Is there really a better alternative? It sure has its flaws, but it's been the best working economic system so far and I doubt that'll change (especially for a communisismesque "quality control" body). You just have to hope that said company will go in the gutter sooner or later.

Besides, I'm sure that an international "quality control" body would just make things too bureaucratic to live with. Sooner or later, we'll have claims of corruption and corporate-influenced monopoly practices in a year or two.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[VGPowerlord]

I got one with my Wii and one as part of the Wiiplay package. Both had their wrist straps attached when I bought them.

The authority that stops broken stuff being bought

[patio11]

We call it "the market" around these parts. Works pretty well. Seems to work pretty well over there, too, if they're not actually selling the broken stuff.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[jamar0303]

If you're joking, then...

But if not, then you've got to take advantage of an opportunity that sits in front of you. Shanghai's got a lot more stuff to buy that you can't (easily) find in the States- pre-modded Wii (pre-modded for about $250-300)/360/PS3 (60GB for about $300-400), unlocked iPhones, cheap cell modems, stuff like that. In other words, if you want to buy something modded or unlocked but you're too afraid of screwing something up, buy it pre-modded from China.

On another topic, given what's happened with the most recent RIAA lawsuit, I think I'm not going to leave China until I finish all my torrents.

Hmmmm

[hotfireball]

Hmm... Something very similar... Where I did saw it already?.. Ah, Microsoft Vista from Wall-Martosoft cloning Apple MacOSX...

Re:The authority that stops broken stuff being bou

[Whiteox]

The anon-coward and you are both right. Market forces will stop the crap from being made, and yes, either you have a bureaucracy that becomes unmanageably large (thus costing more resources to run), or too small to be ineffectual. I can't think of a viable solution either, except note the problem.

Even though market forces do stop this sort of thing continuing, it still happens. The wastage of materials from useless crap product inception to useless crap product end has got to be significant.

Aren't Chinese factories licensed in any way?

Re:How can you confuse them?

[bball99]

- never purchased a Compaq laptop, have you? :-)

not similar

[fozzmeister]

yes it's virtical, and white, but it is not really that similar at all.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Gordonjcp]

an eighty hour workweek at a demanding physical job

If you're doing an 80-hour week, you're getting *fucked*. Either there's something wrong with your job skills, or something wrong with your country's economy.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[lena_10326]

first the typical American is incredibly stupid. This will easily confuse a huge number of people, just like yield signs and roundabouts.

Second the level of education and critical thinking with typical Americans is so low they will not notice details but make decisions based on general shape and color. This causes confusion in all walks of american life. finding the car in a parking lot, picking your own kid out of a lineup. voting for president....

Think of Americans as retarded 3 year old children. now you get the idea how this product will cause mass confusion and for them to be pulled off the store shelves and a public uproar over them.

you think I am kidding?

You sound like an American.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[GrMunky]

And sitting next to this product hanging on the same pegs are handheld versions of tetris, solitaire, yahtzee, an old atari controller with a dozen games in it, some dora and spongebob game controllers as well. as for about the same price as the "imitation wii" game controller. A parent can choose any of those as well. they all work fine and are fun. sorry they are not a wiimote, try electronics buddy. and conveniently on the back of the box are screenshots of the games. i've seen the pastic blisterpack this thing comes in, and the pictures of the games on the back are indeed kind of crappy. so the parent didnt bother to look and see. bummer. maybe they will learn to look before throwing their hard earned money around. but dont worry, even if they made a mistake and hate the game, they have recourse. take it back. 90 day return policy. kept the receipt? awesome! no? hope you atleast kept the box, or are willing to dig it out of the garbage. no receipt or box? take it back anyways, talk to a manager, be calm and nice and tell em what happened. amazing what happens when you try treating them like humans, or neighbors. try it. happy holidays.

Oblig. Simpsons Allusion

[adamofgreyskull]

Next week at Walmart: GENUINE Sorny Playstation 3s!

SN ProgramPad

[tepples]

....The wiimote doesn't have a screen The official Super NES controller didn't have an LCD screen, but the SN ProgramPad did. The SN ProgramPad, pictured somewhere on this page, had three extra macro buttons that could be used to activate special moves in Street Fighter II (e.g. down-forward-punch to throw a fireball as Ryu or Dhalsim). It also allowed the user to record macros, and that's where it used the built-in screen.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[tompaulco]

Maybe I don't know enough about the Wii, but isn't the Wiimote just a remote control for the Wii? If a cluless soccer mom looking for a Wii was dumb enough to just but the remote for it, then she'd actually be a step up by buying this thing which is designed to look like the wiimote, as it actually can be played all by itself.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[edward2020]

I thought I was making a joke. Who cares what kind of toy some snot-nosed kid gets. Now don't get me wrong, when I was a snot-nosed kid, I would have been pissed. Almost as pissed as when a friend broke my Metroplex transformer's leg off.

On another note, since I'm making appeals to emotion, you eat babies and so, obviously, can't be trusted. I prefer the ad hominem attack.

I hope Nintendo sue

[gilesjuk]

This is a blatent rip off and the clone product is complete trash. I hope Wal-mart get their ass kicked.

But this is nothing new, a lot of things are cloned these days, designer goos usually and not just by black market traders.

This is not that hard.

[Lethyos]

In the circumstances you described, the thought process should go as follows. “I want to buy a Nintendo Wii remote. This looks like the Wii remote. Is it made by Nintendo? No. Does the word ‘Wii’ appear on the package? No. Therefore, it is not a Wii remote. Do not buy.” Are my expectations of such simple analysis really so lofty? No. And if a person in unsure, they ought to behave as any responsible adult should and get themselves informed before spending money.

I can exemplify with a personal anecdote. One time I needed to replace my shower head. I have virtually no experience and absolutely no training as a plumber, aside from plunging toilets. Faced with this task, I went to my local home improvement shop. I approached staff and asked them for assistance. In addition to the shower head, they informed me I would also need teflon tape and gave me some installation pointers on how to prevent leaks. This task is entirely trivial but buying a Wii remote from Wal-Mart is far easier still. Reflecting on this, how can you reasonably believe we need baby-sitters to hold the hands of shoppers as they got out spending?

I do not blame people for lacking knowledge. I do, however, think it is fair to fault them for lacking the initiative to correct their ignorance. Why it has become our social norm to accept intellectual laziness is part of a much larger discussion, but I am sure this direction will not take us anywhere but down.

Toyquest manufacturs in China

[pkbarbiedoll]

Not LA as the header may suggest.

Ipod

[TwoHundredOk]

This reminds me a little bit of the rash of i-products that came out after the iPod became successful. Items like the iTrip and the iSpeakers took the design style of the iPod, coupled with the letter I, and sought to piggyback on their sales. I'm not sure if they ever had a deal with Apple to link their products like that, but the simple outcome was that a lot of people, at least that I knew, bought those products thinking that they were official Apple products and not third-party vendors. They weren't terrible products, but there was still market confusion, which I guess is the point here.

Re:Ipod

[that this is not und]

They weren't terrible products, but there was still market confusion, which I guess is the point here.

Yes. And 'market confusion' is a better thing than the alternative, which is that Apple gets to sue anybody who prepends a lower-case i onto a product name.

I haven't seen _that_ much of it in this discussion, so I am relieved that people here aren't sobbing and sulking because of some small company (who sell their toys to Wal*Mart) might be "hurting Nintendo's brand."

Brandnames be damned. This is Slashdot, ya know. Not 'The Consumer's Choice(tm)' or a 'Sharper Image' blog.

Re:Ipod

[TwoHundredOk]

Regardless of the size of the company, the legal principles should remain the same. Making exceptions because of a sad story is a quick way towards bad law. If there is significant market confusion, it probably should be brought to a court case, never mind who is david and who is goliath.

Teach responsibility and it solves itself.

[Lethyos]

The first time you touch a hot heating element on a stove is usually the last time. Otherwise, you do not last too long. If people get burned on these sorts of products enough, maybe the hint will sink in that buyers should be aware of what they are buying before the buy it. In that event, the demand for this crap will dry out and then the supply. In sort, no, I do not want more of these manipulative companies. I do, however, want more personal responsibility so people make informed choices instead of wandering through life blindly, buying whatever they stumble upon without much (if any) thought and the hope that someone will protect their wallet for them.

Re:Teach responsibility and it solves itself.

[Tablizer]

I disagree because the ratio of potential tricks to possible learning experiences is too high. One cannot master every product category in a lifetime even if it did stay consistent over time, which it doesn't. It is more efficient to factor trick filtering to fewer entities rather than everybody have to reinvent the wheel.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Blkdeath]

If you're doing an 80-hour week, you're getting *fucked*. Either there's something wrong with your job skills, or something wrong with your country's economy.

Excrement occurs. I've done it myself and I wasn't even supporting any children; just myself, my rented appartment, and my assortment of bills.

Could I have worked less? Sure, but then I'd have had to give up high speed Internet, cable television, and the occasional 12 pack of beer in the fridge.

But that's what you get when you don't have any qualifications or real-world experience and you need to support yourself on your own. It's quite common in North America for people to either work lots of over time or just plain work two full time jobs.

I will grant you that there is generally something wrong in the picture; these people will often have children way too early, decide to move out of their parents' houses anywhere between 16-19 when there's no real need to (except that they're being a sponge and mom and dad will have nothing more to do with them), a lot of them are high school dropouts who never even considered college.

However many of them come from broken homes where they weren't supporting their children, but their remaining parent and their brothers and sisters. Sometimes dropping out of school in grade 9 or 10 to get a job and provide food on the table now is more valuable than getting an education leading to a career and providing proper housing situation 5-10 years from now.

Of course I do put a lot of the blame on people who make rash decisions such as marrying the first partner that seems acceptable, especially after only a short period of courtship, which seems to inevietably lead to cheating, unhappiness, alcohol / drug problems and separation/divorce. The other end of that stick are the people who have lousy long-term "on and off" relationships that constantly fall apart who believe marriage is the magic bullet to ensure happiness. The situation is made worse when children are involved because now you've started your own family poverty cycle and virtually ensured that your children will steer towards the same path without some significant guidance.

This is what happens to a society where instant gratification, love and hormones are allowed to win out over critical thought and rationality. It sucks, but sometimes it's not the 80-hour-workweek employee's fault directly. Sometimes they just come from a bad situation and never learned any better.

Trite as it may seem, knowledge, education, experience and upbringing play a very large role in a person's ambitions later on in life. A former co-worker of mine came from a war torn country - he lived for some 6-7 years through the war traveling from place to place, never enough food to eat, always with the fear of soldiers barging in and shoving a rifle barrel down one of their throats for some reason or another. Consequently his ambitions are virtually non-existant. He has no interest in earning more money or owning a home because you have to pay more taxes. He's never earned so much as $30k/year, nor has his wife (who works retail) and as a result they live in a seedy bachelor apartment in a really crappy part of town.

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[PitaBred]

You aren't really the target consumer... the consumer who WILL make that mistake knows that they want a video game thingie that's white, and that certainly fits the bill. That it's cheaper makes it even better! Simply by posting on /. you show you have at least half an inkling about technology, and care about it. There are a LOT of people who don't, and could be taken by this.

What does Walmart have to do with it?

[webrunner]

I've seen these at Fortinos grocery stores. These aren't Walmart products, they're just a product that you can buy at Walmart.

Re:What does Walmart have to do with it?

[that this is not und]

Yes, but we hate WalMart, and the operators of this website know that there will be more banner revenue if WalMart is included in the topic. Also, we hate WalMart.

I want one

[shinmai]

..or maybe even two, but I live in Finland, and can't afford the bus fare. If anyone would be willing to buy one, and ship it (provided the costs aren't humongous), I'd happily pay via paypal, and would cladly send something from Finland, in return. If anyone's up to it, please drop me a line.

Ok...

[Soiden]

If they can't tell the difference, they need to be fired. Or maybe, Walmart should close.

Screwing Mexico over

[Dorceon]

Does it count if we give our farmers corn subsidies, and they sell the corn cheaply to tortilla makers, which reduces the incentive for Mexican farmers to grow corn; then we start making ethanol out of corn, which uses up all the surplus and drives the cost of tortillas up in Mexico to the point where poor families can't afford them any more?

Re:Screwing Mexico over

[zippthorne]

Wait.. what is your objection? That corn prices are too cheap, thereby discouraging Mexican farmers? or that corn prices are too expensive thereby encouraging Mexican corn production to divert to ethanol production?

Good for it's potential to ruin a kid's birthday

[philspear]

When I saw these things in walmart, I was overjoyed. Not because someone is making a quick and dirty buck off of a legitimate successfull product, but because of the following: You know at least one spoiled little kid got one of these from a clueless aunt or something for their birthday, opened it up, got excited because they thought they were getting a wii, and then threw a major hissy fit when they realized what it was. I'm picturing it in my head right now, and it's glorious. Phil

Re:Saw those...took me two seconds to no the diffe

[dotgain]

*gulp* - I replied to the wrong comment, sorry.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[incer]

Thanks. Your comment is the only one that hits the spot about this article. Thank you.

Copyright issues?

[nurb432]

This is one of the ( more valid ) reasons copyrights ( and trademarkes ) exist. Perhaps sony should be cracking down.

Sony?

[nurb432]

Blah.... i meant nintendo.. i was just reading something about sony when i posted.. blah

walmart selling crap?

[Robocoastie]

Walmart selling crap? You don't say?

Re:The authority that stops broken stuff being bou

[Impotent_Emperor]

Judging by the export scandal, maybe not.

Okay, actually, I've heard that China has historically had a problem with manufacturing control going back to its communist days (and probably even pre-communist). For instance, some of their factories produced good copies of AK-47s and other military equipment, while the others would produce pieces of junk. Leaders of industrial and agricultural areas would overestimate the amount of rice grown, steel produced, or goods manufactured. There was competition among these leaders and their claims would apparently grow quite outlandish. This was a major problem during the Great Leap Forward.

I think I heard a while ago that each province reports its own economic growth (in addition to the national GDP growth figures). Problem is that each province is reporting growth figures so high that they can't actually average out to be the national GDP. So, this problem may still persist.

This problem exists in Western countries as well: no one wants to be the guy who says the party's over.

Oh what a *%$%$# Feeling!

[Antarius]

just take the corolla's, tough little bastards that won't die

Don't I know it!

17 years ago, I plowed my baby-poo-yellow 1976 Corolla into a 198cm (6'6" to the metrically challenged) Kangaroo (mid-jump). Pushed the front into the engine (along with the radiator), turned the bonnet (aka hood) into a toboggin, made the front quarter panel (don't know what a Quarter-panel would be in Imperial, sorry!) into steel origami...

And the fucker still wouldn't die! Jacked out the front, replaced the radiator, bonnet and quarter-panel. Ran like a dream.

And there I was, thinking that I could get a real car... Damned insurance... (I'm sure that my parent's hated me, giving my my Grandma's old car for my first car!)


To rub salt in my wounds, it was the test-drive after having to replace the engine that had blown up!

On the bright side, now I know what Skippy is saying when he's going "tch-tch-tch." It's something along the lines of "I've just been run over by a Toyota! Oh what a feeling!"

Re:Oh what a *%$%$# Feeling!

[DarkMinds69]

"made the front quarter panel (don't know what a Quarter-panel would be in Imperial, sorry!)"

That'd just be Called Front Fender here in the States...
Quarter panel is usually reserved for the rear two panels from back of rear-most door to end of car body, from lower most point to where ever it joins to the top(roof)((This extension not applicable to convertibles))....There's other names for the smaller units sold to replace commonly rusted out portions, such as fore and aft of the rear wheel (In the North, where salt is used on the roads in winter) that have other names, along with the 'Quarter panel skin' which is pretty much the same as wallpapering that portion of the vehicle..

Chris Tulloch

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?

It's not that difficult

[zantolak]

The one for the Wii says "Wii" right on the front. I've never even seen a Wiimote IRL and I'm pretty sure I would be able to tell these apart. Unless it's some grandma trying to be "cool" and get a fancy toy for her kids, people will easily be able to distinguish these.

The funniest part about this article...

[Minarin]

...is that the Wal-Mart employees can't tell the difference between the two. One has a screen, the other doesn't. One says Wii on it, the other doesn't.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[famebait]

People need to take responsibility for their own actions.

Agreed.
Since when is "selling stuff" or "wilfully misleading your customer" not an action?

Re:How can you confuse them?

[vldmr_krn]

What is needed in situations like this is some kind of authority with enough clout to stop or even prevent material wastage on products that just can't be used.

This involves creating a government agency and staffing it with employees who will review every single product released to market. I want to know:

1. How will these new government employees be paid? If tax moneys will be used, how much will your proposal increase the tax burden or/and the government debt? If companies will be required to pay to have their products go through the approval process, how much will your proposal add to the cost of getting a new product to market, and how many new products by small-margin startups will become unprofitable because of it?
2. What will the average turnaround time be? That is, how much will the approval process add to the time of getting a new product to market? While products are awaiting approval, will competing corporations be able to gain access to their specifications, thus reducing the innovators' opportunity to profit from its innovation?
3. What systems will be put in place to control corruption? That is, if I am a government employee responsible for approving new products, how will you prevent me from accepting bribes to rubber-stamp bad products, or from refusing to rubber-stamp good products in hopes of receiving bribes? How much corruption will be prevented at what cost?
4. What systems will be put in place to control errors? For example, in order to know that the device discussed in this story should be outlawed, I would need to be familiar with the Wii. What systems will be in place to keep me as an employee informed of what I need to know to do my job? How much error will be prevented at what cost?
5. What systems will be put in place to enforce compliance (preventing people from trading products that haven't been approved by the agency)? To what extent will black market dealings be reduced and at what cost?

To put it more briefly, can you give me an estimate of the total cost of the system in terms of:

• Money to staff the agency, keep its employees trained, fight its corruption, and enforce public compliance with its decisions
• Valuable products that never make it to market due to the agency's mistakes, the agency's corruption, and the increased costs of creating new products

Thanks.

Bullshit

[everphilski]

$20k/year doesn't even buy rent and health insurance. For one person. Let alone someone trying to support a family.
Bullshit. I was in college with my new wife of a year and a half and our first son. I was working part time under $10 an hour and my wife stayed at home with our son - this was important to us. Guess what? We made it just fine, without credit card debt, and I was purchasing health insurance and long-term life insurance out of my own pocket. It's amazing to me how many people think they need $40k+ a year to 'scrape by'. We were doing it on a quarter of that.
No big screen TV's, no Wii's XBOX's, or PlayStations, we didn't go out to eat every dinner, we only had one car, a one-bedroom apartment in a decent enough part of town but we got by just fine. Instead, we learned to enjoy each other's company, enjoy the great outdoors, and cook good food from raw ingredients. If you learn to manage your resources, $7.50 an hour is workable for a young family of three. Not easy but a great and valuable experience.

Re:How can you confuse them?

[Whiteox]

They are all valid rhetorical points you raise.
I just think that a quality control agent be employed at the factory and by the factory. Most factories have them, but not all.
The factories that produce cheap useless crap don't bother with internal QC at all. They seem to be unregulated and if they are licensed by a government authority, then that government agency is to blame.
But blame is not the issue here. It's the concept and philosophy that is!
Referring to my example, a plastics factory works off heat,molds and raw plastic materials. If you've got enough heat, pressure and a mould pattern, you can fabricate anything in plastic.
These guys make the stuff, sell it and profit by it, using and abusing the trade infrastructure. Eventually no-one buys the product, so they stop and make something else. Look around the $1 shops for lots more examples of useless crap.
I think that this is a criminal activity and somehow should be stopped by an already existing bureaucracy.
As for the Wii copy, the same market forces would apply, but their own QC control and design team should be accountable to their existing licensing body. This is not happening.

Re:Question

[QuietObserver]

Actually, the question on my mind was why'd they try to blend?

Obvious?

[fm6]

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.

You actually think that big corporations in Japan have less power than their American counterparts? You've been ingesting too much Michael Moore. Japan is often referred to as "Japan Inc." They may be take better care of their workers (or, put it another way, they're more paternalistic) but that requires more power not less.

And Japan doesn't lack big labor movement because the workers never saw a need for it. They used to have one. But like other labor movements, its heyday was the Great Depression. And at the time, Japan was moving towards being a right-wing, expansionistic military dictatorship. (Remember Pearl Harbor? Guess not.) Not the best environment for powerful unions to form.