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by Mike Masnick

Wed, Apr 13th 2005 10:57pm





Are People Really Counterfeiting Nintendo Games From The 80s?

from the something-seems-wrong-here dept

Not quite sure what's going on here, but it certainly sounds like an AP reporter might be a bit confused -- or, at least, has written a confusing article. The article claims that four people were arrested for selling counterfeit Nintendo consoles -- and even says 60,000 counterfeit consoles were seized. Of course, it's not entirely clear why they would be faking consoles instead of the software, so in the very next sentence, the story switches and says that they were counterfeiting games. Which games? "Donkey Kong," "Mario Brothers," "Duck Hunt," "Baseball" and others. Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt and Baseball?!? Yes, that's Nintendo's cream of the crop from somewhere in the mid-eighties. Is there really so much demand for Duck Hunt that it needs to be counterfeited? What's next, Mike Tyson's Punchout?

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    Christopher Wu, Apr 14th, 2005 @ 3:18am

    Yes, it's true.

    If you go to any mall in the north east part of NJ, such as Garden State Plaza, or Willowbrook Mall, you see these little kiosks which sell 600-in-one standalone game consoles which are no bigger than a controller, but plug directly into the TV screen and have all the games (oldschool NES) on a ROM inside. They sell for $15 or $20, and they were all the rage last Christmas. I'm surprised this blatant backalley counterfitting which is well known in other countries, or even in smaller flea markets or game shops in major cities has proliferated to the obnoxious level that it has before Nintendo finally stepped in and did something about it. Some of the "deluxe" versions even have a lightgun for the controller/console.

    -Christopher Wu

    http://www.christopherwu.net/

     

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    thecaptain, Apr 14th, 2005 @ 5:29am

    No Subject Given

    I think people are finally coming around to realizing that bigger and flashier doesn't necessarily mean better when it comes to games and are going back to their roots (and taking along the next generation gamers who are discovering that the old games were quite fun and imaginative).

    Best example I can think of is Nethack...ever play that? Its a very rich hack/slash RPG type game completely in ASCII (although you can get frontends that will overlay graphics...but for the real experience, play the original). Its very popular, development is on going and its addictive as hell. I've known people who played this thing for days non-stop (Myself I've clocked over 5 hours on one session...never beat the thing tho)

     

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    LBB, Apr 14th, 2005 @ 6:20am

    The demand is there

    Just look at the legal 6-games-in-one consoles on the market. Atari has a couple (basically a joystick containing a ROM full of games that connects directly to the TV) as well as Sega and maybe a couple of toy manufacturers (I've seen a Spiderman version and a SpongeBob version). There's certainly enough demand for the $20 sets for them to justify cracking down on the counterfeit consoles. I haven't seen a Nintendo version yet (they're too busy releasing original NES games for the GameBoy Advance), but here's hoping for one soon.

    It certainly makes sense: low development costs (ie, just re-package the hardware, load the software onto a ROM and you're ready to go), so why not re-release them because, as someone already mentioned, people want to play these games? It's not a huge revenue stream, but it's there, so tap it.

     

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