Nintendo wants action on piracy

The Mario Factory has asked that the US government's Trade Representative help in the piracy fight--especially in such regions as Mexico and Korea.

With the popular image of the average Nintendo DS or Wii users being a jolly family putting in a few rounds of Wii Sports boxing or Brain Training in between croqueting and rounds of bridge, one might expect they wouldn't know a BitTorrent if it bit them on the bottom.

Not so, according to Nintendo of America, which is claiming that the company, together with its publishers and developers, lost some $975 million globally due to piracy in 2007.

According to the report, "While China remains the primary source of manufacturing pirated Nintendo DS and Wii games, Korea has emerged as the leader in distributing illegal game files via the Internet. Despite aggressive antipiracy actions taken by Nintendo, Brazil and Mexico remain saturated with counterfeit Nintendo software. Meanwhile, Paraguay and Hong Kong continue to serve as major transshipment points for global distribution of illegal goods."

Nintendo wants stronger laws in all countries to prevent the circumventing of its technological security measures and has asked the US Trade Representative, who is America's chief trade negotiator and principal advisor to the president, to "encourage" a more aggressive stance on the issue.

232 Comments

  • xtoperchris

    Posted Mar 28, 2009 6:37 am PT

    without piracy, i think console sales will not be as good as it is today. good for me i have a ps3, no piracy(i think?). but here in my country, lots of pirated wii and xbox 360 games are found everywhere. i think every wii and xbox 360 owners here supports piracy due to the economy. if not, at least 7/10 people supports piracy here. most console sellers here sells their xbox 360 or wii modified or ready to play pirated games. and it's really hard to stop it here.

  • shabulia

    Posted Jul 31, 2008 2:03 am PT

    A big factor is that DS games are made for a very short amount of time and then you can't find them. They go so rare that you have to search far and wide for them. If the availablity of these games was more open, maybe it would reduce piracy.

  • superkoolstud

    Posted Feb 19, 2008 1:46 pm PT

    Chinese do not care about US laws like "Copyright Law" and they are not alone. Maybe if these game companies came up with a better copy protection plan they wouldn't lose as much money. I mean if you release it on disc format then it will end up on the internet for free. The only way I can think of is using unique CD Keys that have to be authenticated online by a Nintendo server continuously in order to play the game. This however would be bad for business and would kill Nintendo as those without Internet would be screwed. Therefore it will never happen.

  • Raid3r

    Posted Feb 19, 2008 1:07 pm PT

    Take you punches and move on..this is not a fight you can win ..>WHY!!! Because as it stands no one is going to turn into a full blown dictator and subjugate its people for little gaming companies. PERIOD. SO, just start offering MORE for additional items included with the game and charging LESS for JUST the game. wake up.

  • Great_Ragnarok

    Posted Feb 19, 2008 2:08 am PT

    how about Nintendo,MS and Sony put their prices down.
    note I'm not supporting piracy just think that games can afford to be cheaper!

  • chrono_wind

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 9:58 pm PT

    razqoonz

    Even they buy the pirate software, but they still buy the console or handheld from Nintendo, Right? Look at the number of their console sold, compare to the genuine software price. Nintendo should make thank for R4 M3 or WiiKey, for making their console top-ranked sell.

    ==========================
    A company makes major profit off of SOFTWARE sales. Stance on Modchips? It's not what the chip is used for, it's what the person who has it is doing with it. Modchips provide extra potential to the system itself, but one of those options is also illegal downloading, yet at the same time provides convenience. It's nice to have a DS with a whole listing of games ready to play without changing the cartridge. I remember finishing Pokemon Pearl...Imported a crap load of Pokemon, only to lose the game shortly after that and was never able to find it. I was devastated. I could've always bought a new copy, but the time I wasted was even more pointless than spending hours playing. LOL.

    We all have our stance on modchips and illegal gaming and Nintendo has a reason to be angry. :/ This is why Nintendo is angry at their revenue loss...They're not talking about System sales..They're talking about sales of games.

  • Shinob3

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 7:52 pm PT

    As hard as it is to control, Nintendo is actually trying to say something to protect their properties as well as their 3rd party publishers. If you were a game designer / studio, and you saw the game you help create (spend x# of years to make and blood, sweat, tears +overtime) and saw your creation ended up on the street for $8 a piece. You would be pretty pissed knowing that all that money goes to someone that had nothing to do with it and basically stole your game.

  • TAEnemy

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 1:00 pm PT

    SemiMaster "Nintendo's true colors show..."

    If by "true colors" you mean their desire to not allow other people to STEAL their property, then you are correct.

    I don't get why people are bashing Nintendo for doing this. You people do realize that they are not trying to make Nintendo-specific laws, right? They want increased pressure put on game piracy in general which would put the heat on ANY game piracy.

    The things people use as excuses to try and bash products they don't like never ceases to amaze me. I agree that $60 is way too much to pay for a game but I have never seen a Wii game go for more than $49.99. $70 for Cooking Mama? Were you looking at an ad in Forbes magazine or something?

  • mastermind1177

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 12:34 pm PT

    Where's Davy Jones when you need him?

  • SemiMaster

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 9:57 am PT

    Nintendo's true colors show...

  • ufopuller

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 9:41 am PT

    Will be hard to enforce.. Not just you average cop problem...

  • Space-Q

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 9:40 am PT

    OH SNAP!! Please tell me It's shock and awe time again! I hear Korea has weapons of mass reproduction!

    USA! USA! USA!

  • razqoonz

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 3:26 am PT

    Even they buy the pirate software, but they still buy the console or handheld from Nintendo, Right? Look at the number of their console sold, compare to the genuine software price. Nintendo should make thank for R4 M3 or WiiKey, for making their console top-ranked sell.

  • Iworkfortheruss

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 2:11 am PT

    Sucks for nintendo--as long as games going to cost us 60 bucks-pirates will make money

  • monkeyd_93

    Posted Feb 18, 2008 1:30 am PT

    nintendo complain about piracy? thats the last thing i would expect i mean look at its games, like GBA, GB, GC to name a few, its like nearly impossible to piratise, and even with wii games its still hard to use unless you know what your doing. but i understand why they want to put a lawsuit, to keep people from ripping off companies and making profit for themselves. we can only imagine what will happen if they win the lawsuit. and with companies as big as sony, microsoft and nintendo they surely would know how to make it hard or impossible to piratise, like maybe putting an encryption on it which denies it being read on computer or even setting up a different laser reading system which is different from computer if it is even possible

  • manuel1324

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 8:47 pm PT

    Well, even though there are many opinions here, most importantly it is to get them to the nintendo, but the chances that they will listen to us are void( I mean, they didnt wanted to translate Mother 3 to the US even after so many fans of earthbound pleaded to, and that would of have ment A LOT of money fot them) so they wont do ****if it means to lose money....so, its a dead end I think, even if we ask Gmspot to send a letter to then or something like that.

  • URError

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 8:33 pm PT

    I live in Korea and it is amazingly easy to get pirated games here

  • laliluleylo

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 6:21 pm PT

    OMG Sony and Microsoft don´t complain about piracy, and it has been going since Ps1 and Xbox, can't believe the nintendo with all the money they are making, will **** about it. Either way there is nothing they can do about it, besides if they want piracy to stop they should make games more affordable. I mean cooking mama for 70 bucks is not something I will like to pay for.

  • kono11

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 5:06 pm PT

    Piracy will only vanish if every game costs $3.00! Why? Because piracy is an action that people done because of expensive price of games. See?

  • Ungdi

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 4:42 pm PT

    Piracy is impossible to stop, illegal copies of video games and modchips will always be on the internet. Therefore, stopping piracy is like stopping people from going on the internet. It's impossible! But we have to at least try to control it...

  • Lisandro_v22

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 4:32 pm PT

    they wanted piracy cause they didn't know if they could compete with ps3 and 360 now they see they are winning and start fighting it, in my point of view the only reason the wii is being bought in south america is because it's the cheaper system and that they can find "backups" what i don't understand is why is there so much piracy in Spain where they can find games relatively cheap. psx also succeded in south america because of piracy

  • TrojanLB48

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 4:28 pm PT

    Some of the people who buy pirated games wouldn't buy any games at all if there were no bootleg versions. I never buy pirated things they're usually nowhere near as good as the original, but I know that most of the people in China, Brazil, and Mexico can't afford to buy the original.
    Plus, I went to Mexico two months ago and I saw X360 games that cost the equivalent of 80$-120$ but a pirate version was 2$...
    Besides, do you really think Nintendo isn't making any money? They make more than enough $$$ but they spend a lot of it on themselves. The only reason the care about piracy is so that their executive people can buy themselves another summer mansion.

  • DemonSeal-Curse

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 1:36 pm PT

    thats not right i dont want to see nintendo go down the drain like so many other gaming companys they have to do something and work harder on this subject because their my favorite company!

  • LaN3y

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 12:58 pm PT

    We can always say no more piracy...but its so hard to stop.
    i know nintendo products are being pirated, but what can you do?
    its hard to crack down on that because every single day more and more people do pirating you cant crack down on everybody, i feel for nintendo and its losing alot of money because of piracy, but nintendo are in the same boat as nearly every company.

  • Azhar85 posted Feb 17, 2008 7:40 am PT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    Azhar85

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 7:40 am PT (hide)

    nO MORE pIRAcY!!!! gonE PiraCy!!!! I Didn'T WaNT To See My DS DIED Like THE SonY PSP!!!!

  • kwiiboy

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 6:40 am PT

    No more ARs!

  • Zapoo

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 2:07 am PT

    I do imagine that a lot of new Wii and DS games are being pirated, but Ido u know if a large portion of that quote is of all the older nes and snes games that are still liscensed but very easily downloaded over the internet?

  • snowyjoe

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 2:03 am PT

    They just need to invent a new coding system for each Wii game disc or somthing, so if the CD dosn't have the unic code the Wii can't play it.
    Sounds simple but hard

  • yzzf

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 1:25 am PT

    Monthly income for many people in china are lower than US$ 300, or even 200, you can't expect them to spend 1/4 of their montly income to purchase a game

  • ctg867

    Posted Feb 17, 2008 12:53 am PT

    Well hell yay for Nintendo. Piracy ruins the industry. I'm glad their focusing so much of their attention on this.

  • Noobberry

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 11:01 pm PT

    hooray for the R4DS!

  • Jedilink109

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 10:09 pm PT

    Well I don't see how so many of you think that piracy is a-ok and nothing is wrong with it. I mean if they're going to make it harder to pirate games then they should MAKE SURE that game free demos are more readily available to everyone. I mean, I've got an Xbox Live Silver account and I love all of the free game demos on there. It's great! DS, PSP, and Wii should do that more often! As long as it's still easy for me to try out a game before I buy, I'm fine with that. But even if I WOULD download a whole game, I would STILL want to buy the game if it is a good enough game anyway. As long as I can try before I buy, I'm good. And come on people, more readily available official hardware and software is better for the consumer, as it would encourage more reasonable prices.

  • lamprey263

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 9:59 pm PT

    maybe they should make their stuff a little more affordable

  • alberto2045

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 7:22 pm PT

    dude just like manuel1324 said prices over there are wayyyy diferent you have no idea, and that just games consoles cost so much, in Argentina a PS3 costs $1000 belive it or not dolars not currenct from over there

  • manuel1324

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 3:15 pm PT

    I think one of the main reasons for piracy in south america is that in countries like mexico or paraguay games have sky rocketing prices, in contrast with the US 25 to 50$ range, in South america u can find games that suck (Like Boogie or something like that) costing around 100 to 200$, imagine the price of high demand games like Super mario galaxy, or the upcoming SSBB, prices can easily reach 250 to 300 dollars, and this is not a joke, check prices in Latinamerica internet pages, and youll se what i mean. why doesnt ninten do do something about that first?? its not like they are going to go bankrup or something....

  • KBABZ

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 2:54 pm PT

    Well it's not like they're having a lot of trouble so far, unless they need the money to build a couple more production factories so they can meet the Wii demand.

    If they are going to tackle it, I personally think that Video Game piracy is something they can logically tackle, unlike the ENORMOUS problem going on with the music industry. Everyone downloads pirated music, let's face it, but not a lot of people (as far as I know) download or buy illegal games.

  • FriendBear

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 1:55 pm PT

    I hate all this 'Piracy hurts our bottom line BS' it does not, never has and never will. During the 80s, a few popular Video Game magazines did articles trying to find the very answer to that, and they all came up with the same answer, it doesn't. The problem is that companys want more and more money - which is understandable since its a business and usually and unfortuntely its the loyal consumers that end up getting hurt in the end for something, someone in another country does, higher game/hardware prices will often force more people into piracy, I actually praise Nintendo for alot of its sub $30 games - I still don't understand why it has alot of piracy problems, after all, if you do research, the Wii has a device inside that can brick the system if you try to play a pirated game without a proper mod chip, even then its a risk.

    Lets face it, piracy accounts for only a fraction of lost sales, the big name companys should concentrate on creating excellent hardware and/or excellent games instead of worrying about loss of a few million dollars world-wide, when they'll make 70%-90% profit world-wide from the same product, it just boils down to corporate greed here, nothing else.

  • westsiderz28

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 1:45 pm PT

    ha ha the koreans have something to be proud of

  • Merl57

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 1:15 pm PT

    this could be weird this generation pays for games not for music. Maybe the next will not pay for games but pay for the new thing

  • Kfoss

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 12:21 pm PT

    like the other countries give a hoot?..give me a break...we cant even get them to stop making counterfeit zippo lighters let alone to stop them from pirating software.. learn the lesson of the music industry..you cant win RESISTANCE IS FUTILE...

  • Smood

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 9:36 am PT

    "Korea has emerged as the leader in distributing illegal game files via the Internet" hahahahah. Briliantly phrased. Its like the Koreans woudl be proud they are industry leaders.

  • LaN3y

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 3:09 am PT

    @ ScottEFresh : i actualy think Mario factory is a little stab at nintendo. i know gamespot kind of have a hatred towards nintendo, its very obvious.
    IGN is more neutral than Gspot

  • rockstar_88

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 2:14 am PT

    Unfortunately with Nintendo's case, they can't actually turn a profit from other resources like Microsoft and Sony can [with other non-related video games products they sell], which makes this situation pretty understandable. Blizzard is only making a profit in China because PCs are much more accessible, especially since they have internet cafes dedicated to WoW. But does Blizzard manufacture their own PCs? If Nintendo made only software, there would be no point to this, but since they make software games,especially ones that only work on their particular hardware, piracy becomes a bit of a problem.

  • kavadias1981

    Posted Feb 16, 2008 12:46 am PT

    In terms of sales, I dont think any company ever really loses money to piracy. I believe that if there wasn't a pirated alternative then many people just wouldn't buy the genuine copy. I mean, look at the countries mentioned; China, Korea and Mexico. These countries are notorious for their high levels of poverty. They have their pirate copies because they cannot afford the real deal. Now people in North America, Europe and all the other rich countries, who buy pirate games, have no excuse. They are just being greedy and unwilling to put money back into the companies that they expect more games from.

  • ScottEFresh

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 10:50 pm PT

    Stop calling it The Mario Factory ...is that a Gamespot exclusive phrase? Wow...it's really bad.

  • ithebigc

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 10:42 pm PT

    They should do something about R4 users first. I wonder how many millions of dollars lost per year for every single stupid user that fails to understand they should support the developers by buying their game, not downloading it. Shame that Nintendo can't actually do anything about R4s, under the laws of the US.

  • SEEDman_X

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 10:32 pm PT

    ikari22 and Wedge_55 are right. Look at WOW, a really popular and successful game in China. From what I heard, they charge much less over there. Instead of the monthly fee method in US, they sell points. I double check with wikipedia and it turns out to be correct. For around $3.75, you get abound 66 hours of game play. That makes it affordable!

    In fact, there are many game companies in Taiwan, China, and Korea for example. The fact that they can make money proves that game companies can be profitable even in the countries known for piracy. US and JPN should learn from them or create partnership with them to penetrate the market.

  • vare_basic

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 10:16 pm PT

    you see the thing is for some reason wii games are more exppensive than 360 games here in mexico and the console costs 400 dollars just 50 less than 360 oh and if you are wondering ps3 costs 1000 so yeah thats why i only have galaxy and zelda for wii

  • Redsyrup

    Posted Feb 15, 2008 9:46 pm PT

    Wedge_55 is dead on. If they want to beat piracy they have to beat the need for it and price softs in that territory appropriately.

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