Law News, Law Features

X-Men Destiny May Become A Collector's Item

A while back we reported that Eternal Darkness developer Silicon Knights was effectively on the ropes, with less than five staff members remaining in the company. The outlook has just gotten significantly worse, as it has transpired that the Canadian studio has been ordered to recall most of its recent...

Here comes the science

The whole 3D-without-glasses deal is still pretty impressive several months after the 3DS launch, but Tomita Technologies isn't happy about seeing the tech turn up in Nintendo's latest portable, taking the company to court with claims of patent infringement. Seijiri Tomita, a veteran engineer who worked at Sony for 30 years,...

Piracy? But that's not all they R4!

The R4 flash cart has been the bane of Nintendo's handheld existence for years now, with the device widely being used to play illegally downloaded DS ROMs. Rampant piracy has made it especially difficult for third-party developers to reach projected sales marks, and is also the reason non-Japanese-speaking gamers...

No infringement going on here, Officer

You may remember (if you have a watertight memory) a lawsuit arising a few years ago between Nintendo, Microsoft and a third company named Anascape, who sued both hardware manufacturers for apparently infringing their patents. Anascape won that time, netting a cool $21m from Nintendo and an undisclosed sum from Microsoft. Now, two years later, Nintendo has..

Swedish Dentist is forced to change name by Nintendo's crack team of lawyers

It's a classic "David vs. Goliath" battle. A small dental surgery in Malmö, Sweden up against a multi-million dollar video game giant. Sadly, in this case, Goliath won. Nintendo has taken legal action to force the surgery in question to change its name - which was previously "Wii Smile". Before you..

They still have £107,000,000 left to pay, however

Back in 2002 it was revealed that during the 1990s Nintendo's European operation had been colluding with retailers to keep the price of its software and hardware artificially high. Such naughty-type action was brought to the attention of the European Commission and Nintendo was promptly slapped with a whopping £134,000,000 ($199,000,000) fine..

What is stopping us from experiencing the entire history of video games?

Last year Taito issued Space Invaders Get Even on the WiiWare download service as well as multiple versions of the original game on the Japanese, PAL and North American Virtual Consoles. This was in celebration of the 30th annivesary of the release of Space Invaders in arcades worldwide. Similarly Namco is due to celebrate..

Nintendo isn't best pleased with "rip-off" design

We covered Nyko’s innovative wireless Nunchuk controller in a news piece some time ago and were generally pleased by the fact that a peripheral manufacturer had decided to fix one of the key problems with the Wii’s control setup – the pesky wire that keeps hitting you in the face as you furiously fling the Wiimote and Nunchuk around. However,..

Shock! Horror! Hold the front page!

Scandal has rocked the very foundations of the Japanese consumer electronics industry as Hitachi and Sharp – the two companies tasked with producing those lovely little screens you have on your DS – found their offices raided by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission on suspicion of fixing the price of said displays. Nintendo is pleading ignorance on the matter..

While most of you law abiding citizens are still struggling to either: afford the new Nintendo console, or; find the new Nintendo console in a shop, you might find it refreshing to know that foreign prisoners have access to the console whenever they desire.

Alongside being able to play Super Mario Galaxy the collection of foreign murderers, paedophiles and rapists also have access to: Giant plasma..

The latest courtroom drama from the US

It seems that both Sony and Nintendo may have a fight on their hands thanks to a patent dispute currently doing the rounds in the US. This follows on from Sony’s humiliating courtroom defeat at the hands of Immersion Corporation, which effectively cost the Japanese giant $100 million in damages and forced them to remove controversial rumble technology from..

American comedian Jack Thompson has done it again, apparently the Wii acts as a training device that might prepare us for committing an offence.

"Florida retailers are scheduled to sell a very violent video game called Manhunt 2 which will be available, remarkably, for “play” on the kids-friendly Nintendo Wii gaming platform. The Wii device does not utilize traditional push button game..

Is the Nintendo Wii Remote a rip?

While the answer to the question is most probably NO! A small company with a patented mouse-like product believe otherwise. The company ‘Interlink’ applied for a patent in 1997 and successfully received it in back in 2005, which describes a device that is held in one hand, has a trigger, and also a features something similar to laptop mouse pad or mouse..

US Judge rejects a ban on Rockstar's latest smack-em-up "Bully" known in the UK as "Canis Canem Edit".

The US lawyer Jack Thompson attempted to get the game "Bully" banned from sale in Florida saying it was nothing more than a "Columbine simulator". The lawyer has a history of hate towards video games and seems to think they are the root of all evil. Thankfully for the gaming world, a US Judge..