Nintendo once again finds itself the target of a patent infringement case.

As Cnet reports, Maryland-based Hillcrest Labs alleges that the Wii Remote infringes on Hillcrest's patents for a motion-sensitive remote control device known as The Loop. A Hillcrest press release says in part:

While Hillcrest Labs has a great deal of respect for Nintendo and the Wii, Hillcrest Labs believes that Nintendo is in clear violation of its patents and has taken this action to protect its intellectual property rights.

GamesLaw has court documents available.

The United States Attorney's Office has announed that a Florida man who dealt in pirated video games has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined $415,000.

According to a press release, Kifah Maswadi, 24, of Oakland, Florida had pleaded guilty in June to selling Power Player handheld units which were pre-loaded with more than 75 titles, mostly owned by Nintendo and Nintendo licensees. According to the feds, Maswadi earned more than $390,000 peddling the handhelds.

From the press release:

In addition to the 15 month prison term and restitution order, Maswadi was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to perform 50 hours of community service, which includes educating the public on the perils of criminal copyright infringement.

That's what the press release says. But GamePolitics has probed court records and has many more details on the case:

According to Maswadi's indictment, he charged $23.99 for wired versions and $47.99 for wireless units. Both types connect to televisions.

The case began in 2006 when an FBI agent, acting undercover, placed an order with Maswadi for 100 Power Play units at an agreed-upon wholesale price of $10 each. The agent told Maswadi that he planned to sell them at a mall in Manassas, Virginia during the holiday shopping season. The agent eventually purchased 80 more units from Maswadi. In April, 2007, agents raided Maswadi's facilities in Florida. According to the indictment, he admitted to both selling the units and knowing that they infringed on game copyrights.

Court documents indicate that Nintendo reps found 18 unspecified first-party titles on the Power Play units as well as 58 unspecified titles owned by Nintendo licensees. More than 8,500 units were sold by Maswadi. The ESA, which represents game publishers, estimated that the retail value of the Power Play units at $50 each (although the indictment states that Maswadi sold them for $23.99 or $47.99). While admitting his guilt, Maswadi disputed the government's valuation of the loss caused to game publishers. His sentence was below the typical minimum range for the crimes charged.

A Wikipedia entry on the Power Player describes the system and lists a number of the games included (which appear to be old NES titles). The WikiScanner utility indicates that the ESA edited the "legal issues" section of the Wikipedia entry in April, 2007.

What’s black and white and read all over?

A newspaper, but if veteran games industry marketer Bruce Everiss has anything to say about it, that should not include the UK’s Daily Mail:

They really are just trying to sell newspapers with sensationalism because nobody with a brain can be stupid enough to believe what they have written.

Everiss took umbrage with an article concerning Madworld, Sega’s upcoming bloody brawler that’s being developed exclusively for the Wii. The Daily Mail suggested that the game would tarnish the Wii’s family-friendly image and quoted a UK watchdog group that is calling for a BBFC ban on the as-yet unreleased title.

For his part, Everiss offered a point-by-point counter to the Mail’s claims. 

• If a Wii is family friendly then presumably a DVD player is. And you can play totally execrably disgusting content on a DVD player.
• Game content is mild compared to film and book content. MadWorld just pales into insignificance compared to what is on these other media.
• Games are age rated with the excellent PEGI system. Every parent can clearly see this on the front of the packaging...
• There is plenty of equally violent content already available for the Wii. The Mail are just exposing their total ignorance with this...

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen...

The Daily Mail has published news of the first - but surely not the last - mainstream attack on Sega's upcoming Madworld for the Wii:

Players in the 'hack and slash' game, which is due for a UK release in early 2009, can impale enemies on road signs, rip out hearts and execute them with weapons including chainsaws and daggers.

 

The decision to release a violent game on a console which has based its reputation on family fun has shocked anti-violence pressure groups.
 

John Beyer, head of watchdog group Mediawatch-UK, called for a ban on Madworld:

This game sounds very unsavoury. I hope the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will view this with concern and decide it should not be granted a classification. Without that it cannot be marketed in Britain. What the rest of world does is up to them. We need to ensure that modern and civilized values take priority rather than killing and maiming people.

 

It seems a shame that the game's manufacturer have decided to exclusively release this game on the Wii. I believe it will spoil the family fun image of the Wii.

An unnamed Nintendo spokesperson told the Daily Mail:

Wii appeals to a wide range of audiences from children and teenagers to adult and senior citizens, anyone from 5 - 95, as such there is a wide range of content for all ages and tastes available. Mad World will be suitably age rated through the appropriate legal channels and thus only available to an audience above the age rating it is given. The game is not made by Nintendo but by Sega.

Famed game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has been barred from speaking about his outside interests, according to the Times Online.

If the story is to be taken at face value - and not as a Nintendo marketing stunt - the rationale is that Miyamoto's habit of converting his outside interests like puzzle solving, exercise and music into hit games is worth big money:

Having managed to lure millions to games with the inventiveness of characters such as Zelda and Mario, it became Mr Miyamoto's hobbies that shifted gears for Nintendo in the next-generation console era. And as Nintendo's Wii games console approaches its second year, even the most fleeting insight into how Mr Miyamoto is spending his work or play-time is creating huge interest.

 

In short, the gaming and investment communities are wondering which of his current pastimes will be translated into a virtual rendition that will attract millions of sales five years from now.

GP: It would be kind of amusing if it turned out that Shiggy's new hobby was something either unmarketably freaky or irretrievably boring.

Via: Destructoid

Unless they've been playing too much real-life beer pong, GamePolitics readers will likely recall the recent flap over the Wii-ware title formerly known as Beer Pong.

Released this week with an E rating, the renamed Pong Toss from JV Games sparked earlier protests from educators as well as a call from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) for the ESRB to re-rate the game as Adults Only.

Time has now bellied up to the bar to offer own examination of the Beer Pong controversy and finds that it was predictable given concerns over binge drinking:

Perhaps, in retrospect, JV Games should have seen this coming. After all, drinking games and video games may be two of college-kids' favorite pasttimes, but they are also a source of constant complaints from their middle-aged parents...

 

The controversy isn't entirely surprising. The point of beer pong is to get your friends drunk... Last fall, Georgetown University banned beer-pong... The University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Tufts University have also banned drinking games.

 

The anti-pong activism strikes JV Games' [co-owner Jag] Jaegar as somewhat fruitless. As long as students "have access to alcohol, they will create drinking games out of any activity," he says. More to the point, if students have access to alcohol, they'll drink it — no games necessary.

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported on a small Florida manufacturer's claim that Wiimote, the common, yet unofficial nickname for Nintendo's motion-sensitive Wii controller, was negatively impacting sales of its Weemote, a small TV remote control designed to fit children's hands.

Fobis Technologies president John Stephen told Time:

These days, the little guy like us is wondering, What's the point of trademark protection?

We asked Nintendo for comment and received this from NOA spokesman Charlie Scibetta:

Because Nintendo does not use and does not plan to use the Weemote trademark, we declined Fobis' offer to purchase it.  We wish them success with their Weemote.
 

Stephen told GamePolitics that lawyers for his firm had contacted 100 retailers, large and small, requesting that they cease using the term Wiimote in their marketing. Indeed, GP correspondent Andrew Eisen, a major fan of the Wii, pointed out a post by importer NCSX:

Last week, we received a letter from a law firm representing a company which holds the "Weemote™" trademark. The letter stated that we were to stop using the term, "Wiimote" in our product descriptions and NCS Game Notes™ because our actions could possibly cause confusion in the marketplace. NCS respects trademarks and ©opyrights since we also own trademarks and copyrighted material so we're obliging even though we think it's a bit of a stretch... but whatever.

From this day forth, the word "Wiimote" has been banished from N©S' shopping sites and replaced with the word "Wii Remote™." We wasted spent about an hour on Friday making sure the term "Wiimote" was waxed from the NCS shopping experience.

Everyone who follows the video game scene knows that the Wiimote is the unofficial nickname for Nintendo's motion-sensitive Wii controller.

But have you ever heard of the Weemote?

As reported by Time, the Weemote (left) is a small TV remote control, specially designed for children by Fobis Technologies of Miami. The Weemote was trademarked in 2000, roughly six years before the launch of the Wii.

From the Time article:

Nintendo doesn't actually use the term Wiimote in its marketing, but then, it doesn't have to. The Internet takes care of that. Online retailers, from Amazon.com to used-video-game vendors operating out of their houses, advertise the "Wiimote" on their sites, openly or via more obscure means like customer product tags and posted comments.

 

As a result, says Fobis president John Stephen, since the Wii was released in 2006, the Weemote trademark has been so "diluted" that the Weemote's sales, which are mostly online and total fewer than half a million to date, have fallen considerably. In fact, many Wiimote fans believe it's the Weemote that's guilty of the trademark infringement. "These days," says Stephen, "the little guy like us is wondering, What's the point of trademark protection?"

What has been Nintendo's response? GamePolitics put the question to John Stephen, whose firm manufactures the Weemote:

GP: Is there any legal action pending against Nintendo, or planned?

Stephen: First of all, we are not currently engaged in a  legal action with Nintendo or any of their resellers.  Our lawyers have mailed approximately 100 letters to sellers of the Wii remote and related accessories who use the wiimote name to market or describe their products.  This list includes all the major big box retailers as well as most of the specialty retailers.  These requests for cease and desist are required of us by law.  If we do not police and enforce our trademark, it could actually be taken from us legally so this is our obligation.  This obligation is very costly financially as well as in our time.

GP: Have you had any talks with Nintendo about the issue?

Stephen: Our approach has always been to contact Nintendo on this through our attorneys to see about reaching a business settlement, i.e. they purchase our trademark and we set out to rebrand our company. Our argument is that the damage has been done here (whether intentional or not) and that Nintendo has more to gain now controlling this mark then we do. They asked us to give them an offer which we spent a few months pulling together and after submitting that initial offer, they promptly decided they were not interested anymore and basically closed the door.  Though the name weemote is very precious to Fobis Technologies, can you imagine CocaCola with out Coke, or VW without the Beetle or Federal Express with FedEX?

Unfortunately, the reality is we have no leverage and they are already getting a free ride. So I guess their position is why pay for something that is already free!

GP: How has this issue affected you and your business?

We have spent over a year trying to do this in a moral and ethical fashion by talking to them purely from a business standpoint, .i.e.  with no threats of any kind.  This process eats deeply into our profits and productivity. As a small business owner who has spent the last ten years of my life trying to do the right thing and being passionate about our products, this really unsettles me and makes me seriously question why any innovator in their right mind would want to go down this same road? 

When we started our company, we fully believed that our intellectual property would be protected given we did all the proper registrations and due diligence.  My wife and I are both entrepreneurs as were our parents.  How do we encourage the next generation if this is our legacy?

In my mind, Nintendo may not have done any of this intentionally but it seems one would expect them take some kind of moral high ground in the matter. The fact they have registered for the mark in the European Community, have a re-direct on the www.wiimote.ca domain name in Canada to Nintendo.ca,  in combination with freely using metatags on their own site would indicate to me a true slap in the face.

GP: We have a request in to Nintendo for comment.

  Ars Technica is reporting on Mad World, an in-development title for the Wii that is being shown in behind-closed-doors media briefings at E3.

From Ars writer Ben Kuchera's report:

Splashes of color hit the screen when you disembowel your enemies with any number of weapons, and we're told the chainsaw is going to be in the character's standard loadout. The character is competing on a game show where you have to murder as many people as you can in an urban environment to win...

 

Everything about the game is a celebration of violence, a wicked dance of gore. The Wiimote controls look to be very functional, with movements giving you both environmental and weapon-specific finishing moves...

GP: Thanks to comment mod E. Zachary Knight for the heads-up...

As I did yesterday for the Xbox and EA press conferences, I will be live-blogging Nintendo and Sony today via Twitter.

Nintendo starts at 9AM. Sony is at 11:30 (Pacific Time).

If you have a Twitter account (they're simple & free to get), simply follow GamePolitics for my updates during the events.

A quartet of leading publishers have come out in favor of the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) rating system for the UK market.

The game industry there, including publishers association ELSPA, does not look favorably upon the British Board of Film Classification, which itself hopes to claim a bigger piece of the UK's video game content rating pie. The BBFC is probably best known to gamers for its 2007 ban on Manhunt 2 which was later overturned on appeal.

As reported by Next Generation, ELSPA head Paul Jackson minced no words in remarks to British government officials at a media forum in Whitehall.

PEGI is the solution for today, and the solution for tomorrow.

Execs from Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft and Sega also weighed in, with Sega Europe CEO Mike Hayes adding:

If you look at the PEGI system against the film ratings board in the UK, you will see that PEGI is the only system that has the power to prevent games publishers distributing unsuitable content to children. It can ban a publisher’s entire output, rather than just a single title. This power is backed by the entire industry.

Nintendo, which recently lost a $21 million patent case to Anascape, is currently litigating another federal patent lawsuit filed by an Illinois man.

In his complaint, John R. Martin alleges that he patented touch screen and pointing device gaming technology in August, 2005. The original Nintendo DS launched in November, 2004 in the United States. Martin's patent application describes his creation as:

An electronic game device system [which] is switchable between an amusement mode and a gaming or gambling mode and is useful for vehicles such as airplanes or boats which move geographically from jurisdictions where gambling is legal to jurisdictions where it is not...

 

An improved method of operating a touch screen on a CRT or ICD computer screen uses finger release as input registering... Mounting arrangements for mounting computer screens or monitors are also disclosed...
 

The drawing at left, from Martin's patent application, illustrates how he envisioned a user interacting with his device. While Martin does not specifically refer to the DS, the form of input he decribes seems to fit the DS as opposed to the Wii's motion-sensitive input.

In its response, Nintendo has denied infringing upon Martin's patent, of which it says it was notified in November, 2007.

Martin has a similar suit in the works against Apple, presumably over the iPod's touch-sensitive scroll wheel.

GamePolitics has a lodged a request with both Nintendo and the plaintiff's attorneys for additional information.

Sales of new console systems have slowed, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury-News.

While 25 million Wii's, PlayStation 3's and Xbox 360's have been sold in the U.S. over the past 30 months, it seems that most of the buyers are upgrading from older systems or adding a second, or even third, game system. Console-less homes are mostly remaining that way. Said David Klein of Los Angeles-based research firm Centris:

We're looking at very slow growth.

What does this mean for the game biz? It's not good news, writes reporter Mike Antonucci:

The implications for the game industry, whose challenges include rising development costs, are sweeping. An expansion of the game audience offers continued revenue growth, or at least a hedge against a spending slowdown by existing fans...

 

[But]  ...word-of-mouth enthusiasm [for this generation of consoles] may not be translating into much real expansion...

On Tuesday GamePolitics broke the news that Morgan Creek Productions had filed suit against Nintendo on June 12th over the use of the Hans Zimmer song You're So Cool in a 2004 commercial for GameCube hit Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. The tune was part of the soundtrack of Morgan Creek's 1993 film True Romance.

As we also reported, the suit was voluntarily dismissed just six days later.

Now we know why: inept lawyering on the plaintiff's part.

Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America Corporate Affairs spokesperson, forwarded this statement to GamePolitics:

A lawsuit filed by Morgan Creek Productions, Inc. against Nintendo of America was recently dismissed.  The lawsuit alleged copyright infringement by Nintendo for its use of the song "You're So Cool" in a Nintendo GameCube television commercial produced by advertising agency Leo Burnett USA, Inc.  In response to the lawsuit, Leo Burnett provided Morgan Creek Productions with a copy of a music license entered into between Leo Burnett USA, on behalf of Nintendo of America and Morgan Creek, for licensing of the song.  The lawsuit was dismissed by Morgan Creek Productions the following day.
 

A Los Angeles film production company sued Nintendo on June 12th, alleging that the console manufacturer used a tune from the movie True Romance in a commercial for the GameCube.

The suit, filed by Morgan Creek Productions in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff on June 18th.

The 1993 film was directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino.

The song in question is You're So Cool, composed by Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer. The suit claims:

Sometime within the past three years, [Nintendo] used the sound recording of "You're So Cool" without authorization in a television advertisement for the Nintendo "GameCube."

 

Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that [Nintendo] also used the sound recording at issue herein in other forum in order to generate sales for their product.

It is unknown why the suit was dismissed less than a week after being filed. GamePolitics is seeking comment from the plaintiff's attorney as well as Nintendo.

The complaint does not make reference to a specific use of the song by Nintendo. However, this 2004 post from the Toon Zone forums makes reference to You're So Cool being used in an ad for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

UPDATE: Also, courtesy of comments left by GP readers Orange Soda and Anonymous, we've added the video of the commercial which apparently sparked the copyright claim.

Read the lawsuit here.

The Fairfax County Times reports that Beer Pong, a soon-to-be-released Wii Ware title, is sparking protests by local advocacy groups.

The game's T (13+) rating has been called into question by Lisa Lombardozzi, chairman of the Greater Herndon Community Coalition. Lombardozzi, who has circulated a petition demanding a re-rating by the ESRB, told the Times:

The game encourages younger kids to emulate the patterns of college-age kids.

Gen. Arthur T. Dean, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, was also critical of Beer Pong. Of the game, Dean said:

Beer pong is an activity that normalizes and encourages heavy binge drinking, shows blatant disregard for the dangers of alcohol poisoning, and can cost lives and result in injury.

 

Furthermore, promoting the video game Beer Pong in the Frat Party Games series under a Teen rating ignores the fact that many youth involved in fraternities on college campuses are not of legal drinking age and that youth as young as 13 can purchase the game under this rating.

The Northern Virginia Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving are also said to be looking into the sitiuation. Readers may recall that MADD came out strongly against the simulated drunk driving in Grand Theft Auto IV.

(GP: although, in my mind the performance hit Nico Bellic takes when drunk is a strong motivator NOT to drink & drive).

JV Games spokesman Vince Valenti responded to the criticism:

I think it's kind of funny. The game promotes the sport of beer pong. We are not advocating drinking any more than watching cartoons or watching the TV show 'Cheers,' or even going bowling or to a baseball game... if anything, you're going to be drinking less. Because you are too busy playing the game, trying to beat your opponent, to be constantly picking up a beer and drinking it.

We noticed this T-shirt at Think Geek and, well, since it's Election Year and this is GamePolitics, we just had to mention it.

All I can say is that my choice in November just got a lot more complicated...

Ubisoft has announced that it will release a handheld video game designed to help users kick the cigarette habit.

Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking is scheduled for November release on the Nintendo DS. The game  is based on the smoking cessation program of the same name, which currently features books, DVDs and clinics. According to an Ubisoft press release, over 10 million people have already availed themselves of the Carr method. Ubisoft exec Christian Salomon commented:

Ubisoft’s creative team has worked hard to deliver a game that successfully communicates Allen Carr’s Easyway method via play. The player experiences a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking.

Robin Hayley, managing director of Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking, added:

There was an amazing synergy between Allen Carr’s Easyway team and Ubisoft as we worked on this project. Our experts worked hand in hand with the Ubisoft team to create an entertaining and illuminating game that delivers Allen Carr’s Easyway method in a new, dynamic and highly effective way.

In 2005 the ESA announced that each of the three next-gen consoles would include ESRB rating-based parental controls. Nintendo, however, seems keen on taking the monitoring concept further.

According to the latest in a series of interviews with the Wii development team, the new system will have a "Play History" feature which tracks how long gamers play as well as what they are playing.

"Rather than the console turning itself off automatically to ensure it is not played for more than an hour a day, it seemed much better to allow parents to use the Play History to discuss with their children how much they are using the console," explained Tomoaki Kuroume, who oversees software user interfaces. "The decision to make it impossible to delete this data was a separate subject for debate."

"Even if a kid wakes up in the middle of the night and sneaks down to play games, that will show up on the Play History!" added Takashi Aoyama, manager of the development group behind Wii’s operating system.