Nintendo asks U.S. to address video game piracy problems worldwide
Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 9:17am by Press Release
Nintendo of America Inc. has asked the U.S. Trade Representative to encourage specific governments around the world to take a more aggressive stance to combat piracy of Nintendo video games and systems. Nintendo filed its comments under a “Special 301″ process, in which the U.S. Trade Representative solicits input from the public to underscore specific areas of concern.
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 anti-piracy 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.
“The unprecedented momentum enjoyed by Nintendo DS and Wii makes Nintendo an attractive target for counterfeiters,” said Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America’s senior director of anti-piracy. “We estimate that in 2007, Nintendo, together with its publishers and developers, suffered nearly $975 million USD worldwide in lost sales as a result of piracy. Nintendo will continue to work with governments around the world to aggressively curtail this illegal activity.”
Below is a summary of Nintendo’s filing:
OVERALL: Nintendo recommends stronger laws in all countries against the circumvention of technological security measures. Video game pirates have developed DS game-copying devices and modification chips to target the security found in Nintendo’s hardware systems and allow the play of counterfeit software or games illegally downloaded via the Internet.
CHINA: China must pursue criminal prosecutions against people involved in large-scale piracy operations. Nintendo works with Chinese authorities, who seized more than 1 million fake Nintendo products in China during the past year. But not one counterfeiter has been prosecuted.
KOREA: Nintendo supports the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, but suggests that it must be ratified immediately to address service providers who are profiting from the uploading and downloading of illegal Nintendo content. Korea is an important market for Nintendo, and Internet piracy is seriously affecting the growth of the video game industry in the country.
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA: Latin America remains a haven for piracy. Evidence supporting this claim includes escalated violence in Mexico against police conducting anti-piracy raids, extraordinarily high tariffs and taxes placed on the sale of authentic video games in Brazil and widespread corruption in Paraguay. During the past year, Nintendo assisted local authorities with more than 65 actions that resulted in the seizure of approximately 230,000 counterfeit Nintendo games in Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay alone. Despite Nintendo’s efforts, the piracy levels continued to rise. Nintendo is calling for significant changes to laws and to the enforcement regimes in those countries.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Yeah, it is really a big problem here in Brazil, not only for Nintendo, but for Microsoft (X360) and Sony (PS2) as well. High taxes inflate game prices up to 3x what it costs in the US. Computer games are not that inflated, but they also cost about 1.5x more than a US counterpart.
This is why I usually import all games I have, since it is cheaper to do so than buying a game in the local store. But most people rather buy (or download) a pirated copy, since it is way cheaper. Anyway, it is a large problem in the world nowadays…
Best!
February 14th, 2008 at 10:59 am
I hadnt realised how easy it was to get pirated games for a Wii. I’ve found out that someone I know has theirs chipped. Those cheats.
But I would of preferred the headline to read
“Nintendo asks US to dress like a pirate” Would Reggie be able to convince a Nation?
February 14th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Similar problem in Mexico: all video game products are priced at least twice what the official price is here in the U.S…. If you thought game prices were too high here, imagine doubling all of them! On top of that, they are extremely difficult to find legally! It is almost as if the industry was begging people abroad to get the pirated version of the product instead of the legal version.
I definitely can’t blame consumers there: for many years, DVDs were not even available in Mexico unless they were pirate copies, even if you were willing to pay $30-$50 for a movie that cost $20 or less in the U.S.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Half of all this piracy is just fueled by the consumer, buying all the pirated software, or just downloading it in some cases.
If everyone were to buy legit software instead of supporting the pirates, sales would go way up. if they were to go up, companies could even think about charging less for their games, in other words, the people out there who buy legit software are paying for the idiots who download or buy pirated games.
I remember when I first bought Fire Emblem on the GBA (from ebay), I bought it and it wouldn’t even fit in my DS/GBA! so obviously pirated, when I managed to cram it into my GBA it wouldn’t save at all. Really annoying especially seeing as when I tried to contact them for a refund they had closed their ebay account and I was stuck with a paperweight that wasn’t even heavy enough to weigh down paper…
February 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Indeed, piracy in brazil is very common. You can find pirated wii games easily, and there are no efforts to reduce it, it seems.
São Paulo is filled with pirated games,movies and more.NO authorities seem to do ANYTHING about it. Very sad indeed. im thinking about filming it and upload it to youtube so you can see how easy it is to get a pirated copy
and how normal it seems for anyone
February 14th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
@Jamie
“Half of all this piracy is just fueled by the consumer, buying all the pirated software, or just downloading it in some cases.
If everyone were to buy legit software instead of supporting the pirates, sales would go way up. if they were to go up, companies could even think about charging less for their games, in other words, the people out there who buy legit software are paying for the idiots who download or buy pirated games.”
When you can’t find an official copy of the game, or if you can, it costs pretty much, 2.5 as much as it does in the US, what exactly do you suggest we do? I am not raping my beautiful white friend with a mod chip, but I’m also not gonna pay 145 dollars for Mario Galaxy or 310 dollars for Guitar Hero.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I wonder if congress will be as proficient with this, as they were in determining of Clemens was lying…..
February 14th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
@Felipe
I think it will be cool of you can upload a documentary regarding this issue. Here in PR DVD piracy is very high; you can see small kiosk at the rural roadside selling DVDs: 1 for $5 2 for $7 5 for $10. The R4 is also gaining ground here and downloading roms for DS is getting easier by the day.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Those companies could do a lot themselves to slow down piracy a bit in place like south america and mexico, it might already be to late though. I don’t think Nintendo will ever be able to do much for the ds though, that thing has been cracked wide open since 6 less than 6 months after its release.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
@Felipe
You know what’s even better, and why it seems so normal to some people, is that a lot of people don’t care because they just see the “same product” for less. Someone I work with went to China and came back with a load of iPod knock offs. She said, look, I have all these iPods do you want one? I said, how much did it cost you? She said an insanely cheap price and I said, it’s not an iPod, no way. She said, yes, it says iPod right here. I asked her if it worked with iTunes and she said no, but who cares, it’s a cheaper iPod.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I know that in all these countries most consumers would prefer to buy the legit version of the software. Alas, in most cases it isn’t even possible, and when the option is available, the price is ridiculously high!
The legal versions are of better quality, and guaranteed to work, but $100 for Mario Strikers Charged?? And take in consideration that the pirate copies of games that don’t get there are not that much cheaper than the official price here in the U.S.!
February 15th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
@ Roddy - “I’m not raping my beautiful white friend” um Nintendo is a Japanese company, so you’re not really raping anyone except Nintendo and their investors. Sucks that you can’t find a legit copy without paying 2x the amount we do. Unfortunately it sounds more like the import tarrifs and corruption of your government’s actually to blame and you can’t blame Nintendo for counting their losses, but at least the sum of their gains were more than the losses, so you have plenty more of their money coming down the pipes to rape
February 16th, 2008 at 8:22 am
@ actraiser - I think you misunderstood me. I meant I’m not about to install a mod chip in my Wii no matter what. I do want official merch, and even though I know Brazilian taxes are to blame, if Nintendo were to establish an official venue down here, like Microsoft has and like they themselves had back in the 80’s and early 90’s, prices would drop dramatically.