Nintendo has finally decided to crack down
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompa...01669718_newsml (http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh03512_2004-11-01_19-57-19_n01669718_newsml)
The only question is why did they crack down on fan games first? Oh well kill the pirates!
I know everyone has taken an interest in these systems, and they are really neat, but its just not right to make money off of this! I can't believe in the United States this went on as long as it did.
One reason it went on so long was disinformation on the part of the pirates. From what I gather someone somewhere reverse engineered the basic core of the Famicom and released a freshly written version that does not infringe on Nintendo's IP. These pirated consoles are not illegal, there's a lot of them for sale in major chains in Japan.
Some chinese sellers tell their buyers now that these consoles are LICENSED - which they are NOT. They're merely legal.
Bundling games is a different story; there are a lot of PD games out there, and when you remove the © data and change the title it suddenly becomes hard for the layperson, and this includes the buyers for stores as well as their customers, to tell if the game is a pirated rip or a clever clone.
Then there's the matter of proof, Nintendo's gotta prove they own the game and that the new product actually uses NIntendo's IP, tho recent changes to US law make it easier for corporations to get stuff pulled regardless.
Nintendo are a bunch of d1cks anyway when it comes to legal issues (attention whores).