Topic: Nintendo Aplauds U.S. Government's Strong Position Against Piracy In China

[Gahiggidy]

Nintendo and the United States government work to stop counterfeit games in China.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=13299

 Nintendo Urges: 'Progress Must Be Made'    

REDMOND, Wash., April 10, 2007 - Nintendo of America Inc. today announced its strong support of the U.S. Trade Representative seeking formal consultations with China regarding its failure to meet World Trade Organization obligations concerning intellectual property protection and enforcement in China. As part of its uncompromising campaign against international piracy, Nintendo continues to be an outspoken supporter of the U.S. government, given that more than 7.7 million counterfeit video game products from more than 300 Chinese factories and retailers have been seized during the past four years.    

Despite aggressive efforts for the past decade, China has built itself to be the leading production site and exporter for counterfeit Nintendo video game products, and has the largest domestic consumption. Despite the millions of counterfeit Nintendo products seized from retailers and manufacturing plants in China through the years, there has only been one criminal prosecution. Numerous factories, where tens of thousands of counterfeit Nintendo products were seized, escaped with only trivial fines or no penalty at all. And often these production sites continue to operate after products are seized. In order to avoid punishment, many counterfeiters are sophisticated and keep stock levels below the criminal thresholds and avoid keeping sales records.    

Each year Nintendo participates in the Special 301 process - the annual process by which the U.S. Trade Representative solicits views from the industry and makes judgments about the adequacy of intellectual property laws and enforcement in foreign countries. This year, Nintendo provided evidence to the U.S. Trade Representative regarding piracy in China, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay. The piracy not only affects Nintendo, but also more than 100 other companies who independently create, license, market and sell Nintendo products. In 2006, the estimated loss due to piracy was $762 million.    

"Nintendo will continue to work with the U.S. government while aggressively pursuing counterfeit Nintendo products in China," says Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America's senior director of anti-piracy. "We're pleased the U.S. government is pushing China to comply with its trade commitments in an effort to protect the lifeblood of the copyright and trademark industries."

[ShyGuy]

Reporting to mods for being too political.

[Plugabugz]

Nintendo urges its European division to translate games faster.

Nintendo Urges: 'Progress Must Be Made'.

[Crimm]

In other news, Nintendo likes money.

[Djunknown]

You can't really talk about this without bringing up politics, so I'll keep it to a minimum...

Quote
Despite the millions of counterfeit Nintendo products seized from retailers and manufacturing plants in China through the years, there has only been one criminal prosecution. Numerous factories, where tens of thousands of counterfeit Nintendo products were seized, escaped with only trivial fines or no penalty at all

Could this because these factories and plants have some ties to the Chinese government that get a cut of the profits either by looking the other way or 'protection' money? And that when are 'discovered' they're given a slap on the wrist to 'satisfy' those with a sense of justice? Or is it apathy?

But on the other hand, its to my understanding the video games and electronics in general are expensive everywhere else that's not North America.  How bad is the mark-up in China? I'm not sure whether they set artificial prices a la socialism or let fluctuate free-market style since China has a hybrid of both...

Anyone with some knowledge of economics care to answer?

[that Baby guy]

Well, I have no knowledge that you ask for, but I do remember that Nintendo attempted to cater to the needs you suggested those markets have.  They made the Que, or I believe it was called the Que, exclusively for these "pirate" markets.  It sounded to me like it had a built-in SNES/N64 combo, and you could download games onto it's limited memory.  Though I could be mistaken about the whole thing, I thought it was released after the Gamecube's launch, shaped like an N64 controller, and was sold at a very premium price.  I'll look around for it in a little bit, and update here with what I find.

Edit:  I didn't have to look very far.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hardArt.cfm?artid=2509

I did a search for "Que" and "iQue" was on the list.  To me, it seems very inexpensive, though I don't know the cost comparison, but it does show Nintendo is looking to work with a market in order to be successful.  What's very interesting is that it seems almost prototypical of the Wii's VC...

[Nephilim]

ique was replaced with the nintendo ds I believe
noticed ique is impossable to get now

[that Baby guy]

Right, after wiki-ing it, I see that the iQue company has further released more products, which are basically a GBA, GBA SP, GB Micro, DS, and DS Lite, except they have slightly larger firmware in the DSs to account for the larger characters, either in size or amount.  The only difference is really the name, and the fact that the iQue DS and DSL are the only ones that can play the Chinese versions of the games, though they are still region free.

Although I wouldn't trust wikipedia too far on this one, as it seems like wikipedia believes the iQue also plays GC games.

[Ceric]

Not to surprising.  Nintendo makes it a point to make it hard to priate their software.  They have gotten pretty burned by it all as the 762 Million dollar number can attest to.