Nintendo Pays Innovation Tax To Patent Holder

from the good-for-innovation? dept

A year ago, we noted that Hillcrest Labs was going after Nintendo, claiming that the Wii violated its patents. And, like so many other patent holders, Hillcrest got to take two separate cracks at Nintendo, suing in court and also filing with the ITC to block imports. Recognizing just how ridiculously costly it is to defend both the lawsuit and the ITC process, it looks like Nintendo has just agreed to pay up. The company still insists that the Wii doesn't infringe, but the system is stacked against companies who actually innovate. It's so costly to defend yourself, that it's usually just cheaper to settle. Consider it a tax on innovation... except the tax doesn't even go to anything useful.

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Nintendo Wii Doesn't Infringe On DVD Playing/Parental Control Patent

from the good-news dept

It's nice to see a patent lawsuit go in the right direction. A judge in LA has tossed out a patent infringement lawsuit against Nintendo concerning parental controls on DVD players. The only problem? The Wii doesn't play DVDs. Of course, Nintendo still faces a number of other patent infringement lawsuits, but at least this one was dealt with relatively quickly.

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Two And A Half Years Later, Wii Shortages Start To Let Up

from the still-no-wii-fit dept

The shortages that accompanied the launch of the Nintendo Wii weren't too surprising, since they seem to be par for the course for any new game console these days. What was a little surprising was just how long the shortages lasted after the Wii's late 2006 introduction. If you still haven't had a chance to find a Wii in-stock, your wait should soon be over, as an exec from the retailer GameStop says they "finally have enough inventory on the shelf" (via Engadget), and the shortage of Wiis should be letting up. Clearly the Wii has been a huge hit, but it would seem that Nintendo could have gotten a handle on its production output in less than, eh, two and a half years. There's also speculation that the weakness of the dollar was leading Nintendo to send Wiis to places like Europe with stronger currencies (and hence more profits when Nintendo converts foreign currencies back into yen). Or did Nintendo just leverage the scarcity so it would contribute to the Wii's appeal?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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The Wii Might Not Be Much Exercise, But Suing Nintendo For Self-Promotion Is

from the and-1-and-2-and-file-and-sue dept

The Nintendo Wii has been the subject of class-action lawsuits before, but this could be a new low: some guy now claims he's preparing another one for the company to deal with, because he alleges Nintendo misrepresents the Wii as a fitness tool when it actually contributes to obesity. He equates Nintendo to tobacco companies misrepresenting the safety of their products, but as Engadget points out, he's not just some do-gooder concerned about the health of America, he's also somebody who makes his living from it, and apparently has a fitness radio show that's about to launch. Somehow it's hard to imagine this suit will get anywhere; but we also imagine it was never really meant to anyway.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Don't Say You Weren't Warned About How Dangerous The Wii Can Be

from the domestic-tranquility dept

When the Nintendo Wii first came out, there were lots of stories talking about how it was causing users physical pain, and it was blamed for an increasing number of ER visits. Further proof that the Wii can be harmful to your health comes out of Austin, Texas, where a guy has been accused of trying to choke his girlfriend with a Wiimote strap -- after she woke him up and accused him of eating all of her Girl Scout cookies. Nintendo's already been sued once for making the Wiimote's wrist strap too weak; we won't hang around to see if another lawyer alleges they've now made it too strong.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Nintendo Making Peripherals Impossible To Buy Used

from the sneaky,-sneaky,-sneaky dept

An anonymous reader points us to some news concerning the latest skirmish in the battle over used goods in the video game industry. As we've noted, various execs have been freaking out over secondhand sales, despite tons of economic evidence that a robust secondhand market increases the value of the original offerings. In this case, it appears that Nintendo is selling a "Wii Speak" microphone that can be used with certain games, but in order to use it, you need to download the "Wii Speak Channel" which can only be downloaded with a code supplied with the Wii Speak (Update: as noted in the comments, this description isn't quite accurate. You can still use the Wii Speak in the game, but the Wii Channel is needed to use it outside of the game). And here's the sneaky part: that code can only be used once. Effectively, it's impossible to resell the Wii Speak, because you can't use it unless it's been purchased new. This is pretty dumb, as it certainly decreases the value of the device, and will make plenty of folks think twice before committing to it, knowing that it can't be resold.

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How To Do Advertising On YouTube: Make It Awesome

from the content-equals-advertising dept

In the past, as we've talked about how advertising is content and content is advertising, we've pointed out that many folks who worry about "advertising" on YouTube are missing out on the fact that the YouTube videos are advertising themselves. But, of course, with millions and millions of videos on YouTube, it helps to do something special. Our own Tim Lee sent over this example of a YouTube video about a Nintendo Wii game that's worth watching in its entirety, just to see what happens. Can't say much more about it, other than that you should watch the whole thing. It acts as fantastic content and fantastic advertising in a single shot -- without "overlays" or "prerolls" or anything like that. It's yet another example of how a YouTube video fits in when people recognizes that content is advertising... and advertising is content.

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And Of Course: Nintendo Sued For Patent Infringement Over Wii Devices

from the only-a-matter-of-time dept

These days it's almost guaranteed: if you do something innovative in the tech world, bringing a new type of product to market successfully, get ready for that lawsuit. If anything, it's almost surprising that this lawsuit wasn't filed earlier, but research firm HillCrest Labs has sued Nintendo for patent infringement over its Wii controller. And, of course, HillCrest gets two cracks at it, since the company is using the popular loophole to both file a lawsuit in court and ask the International Trade Commission (ITC) for an injunction against Nintendo.

At this point, plenty of companies are recognizing that it's just too expensive to actually innovate. If you do something well, you're only going to get sued by someone else who hasn't been able to innovate as well as you. While we can point to the various examples of companies getting sued, it's also worth thinking about all the companies who don't even bother to innovate, recognizing it's just not worth the expense of these lawsuits. The patent system is functioning in exactly the opposite manner from its constitutional purpose. It's not promoting the progress, it's hindering it by making sure that "progress" has a toll booth attached to it.

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The Wii Is Popular, But Wii Users Aren't Buying Many Games

from the wii-sports-is-plenty dept

The traditional economics of the video game console market are fairly well known. You sell the console itself at either cut rate margins or even at a loss, and then make it up in selling very expensive games for the console. That's worked in the past for the various version of the Sony Playstation and the Microsoft Xbox. But, apparently things are a bit different with the Nintendo Wii. While the Wii has been a huge success, opening up a tremendous new market of console buyers and users thanks to its unique input mechanism and gameplay, it turns out that Wii owners are buying noticeably fewer games than owners of competing consoles. In fact, it appears that many Wii owners haven't bought any games and are satisfied with the Wii Sports package that comes with the Wii. At this point, I should admit that I'm in this group as well, though part of the reason is simply not knowing which types of games are likely to work well with the Wii controller. As such, it's not worth spending a huge amount to find a game that's simply disappointing. The article suggests, also, that since Wii buyers tend to be very different than other console buyers, the marketing and advertising strategy for Wii games is all wrong. The real question, though, is whether or not this is really a long term problem. The Wii itself (unlike the PS3 and the Xbox) is sold at a profit, according to most assumptions. So, while selling more games is important, it's not as important as with the other consoles.

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Latest Pointless Patent Claims: Who Invented The Wii Controller?

from the you-need-to-own-a-patent-to-enforce-it dept

One of the problems we have in the various discussions about patent and copyright law is that people falsely assume that both systems are designed to give "credit" to the original creator and to somehow enforce "fairness" in making sure that original creator receives recognition. That has never been the case. Both are designed to create monopolies, to provide incentives to create. That has nothing to do with credit -- and, that's especially clear in patent situations where the actual people named on the patent are rarely parties to a case, as it's more often owned by a firm (such as the company the person worked for). Most companies require that their employees assign any patents to the company. So it seems fairly ridiculous to find out that a guy who doesn't actually own the patents he received is pissed off at Nintendo for using his idea in their Wii controllers. The guy worked for Midway Games, a popular videogame maker, who now owns the patents in question. It's difficult to see what his complaint is, since the patents are no longer his and Midway does not appear to have any problem with what Nintendo has done. In the video itself, a patent attorney suggests that the Wii seems to go well beyond the patents in question and it seems unlikely that Nintendo is infringing -- but since the few second demo looks similar, it makes for a nice news cast claiming someone "stole" an idea.

The likely situation is probably a lot less interesting. Lots of folks have been working on motion sensing videogame controllers for quite some time. This wasn't a new concept that sprung up overnight. There are also many different ways to create such a tool and just because the end results look similar, don't mean that a patent was infringed. However, an even bigger point is one that we've been trying to drive home for a while. The invention part is only one small part of the equation. Innovating and actually bringing the product to market is more important -- and that's what Nintendo did successfully. This guy worked for a gaming company and came up with a prototype six years ago and didn't do anything with it. While lots of folks were trying to come up with motion sensing gaming devices, Nintendo successfully brought one to market.

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Wiinjuries On The Rise, But Still Probably Not The Most Dangerous Thing In Your House

from the go-outside-and-play dept

Back in 2006, Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joel Zumaya almost missed the ALCS playoffs due to an injury, caused not by hurling baseballs at 100+ miles per hour, but by excessive video game playing of the popular guitar simulation, Guitar Hero. Fast forward a few years, and once again, there are now reports of an increased number of injuries as a result of playing the Nintendo Wii, due to the more physically involved play associated with the new game system. The reports do seem a bit alarmist, however. Anyone that has actually played with the Wii quickly learns to control themselves (and also learns that the excessive movement that could potentially cause injury is actually not even needed). Even Nintendo's own study has shown that Wii playing is not great exercise, so it is highly unlikely that anyone is really going to heed the article's advice and stretch prior to playing Wii. The article mentions an increase in the number of Wii-related ER cases, but fails to give any supporting data to this anecdote. So, until some supporting numbers are published to prove the contrary, it is probably a safe bet that rollerblades cause more ER visits than Wiis.

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Nintendo's Own Study Show Wii Not So Great As Exercise

from the honest-results! dept

There's been a little buzz around the news of a new study in the UK pointing out that playing games on the Nintendo Wii really isn't a particularly good substitute for real exercise, as some Wii-players would like to believe (and I'll admit that I'm guilty of playing some Wii boxing in lieu of real exercise). However, what may be even more interesting is the fact that the study was actually paid for by Nintendo. Perhaps we've just become so cynical about corporate "studies" like this in the past, that it's relatively shocking to find one paid for by a company that shows the opposite of what the company probably hoped to see -- and then to still see that study actually published somewhere.

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