Wii, DS Pirates Walk Plank
Date: Tuesday, October 23 @ 08:35:32 UTC
Topic: Off Topic
Nintendo along with Hong Kong authorities have cracked down on a piracy operation with a raid that yielded 10,000 game copying devices.
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Described as a “global distribution operation” for illegal copying devices and mod chips used for pirating DS and Wii games, authorities raided Supreme Factory Limited’s facilities on October 8 this year.
The raid lasted for three days, turning up pirating devices that enable users to upload DS games to the Internet for distribution and mod chips to play illegitimate Wii discs.
The raid was made in conjunction with the Hong Kong High Court, which intervened to prohibit involved companies from further distribution of piracy-related products. The court also ordered that company assets be frozen.
Documents found during the raid turned up ties to France’s Divineo SARL, which ran into piracy-related trouble last year for distributing the HDLoader, software that allows users to install full PS2 games to the console’s add-on hard drive. Divineo was ordered to pay over $9.5 million in penalties.
Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America’s senior director of anti-piracy, said in a statement, "Piracy affects the entire video game industry, from large companies to independent developers. It can destroy years of hard work by a team of very talented software developers, who strive to create games consumers enjoy playing. Copying the developers' work and spreading the game files globally is blatant stealing."
Asia is a hotbed for videogame piracy, which acts as a sizable barrier for many companies to expand their operations into the region. The rise of broadband and digital distribution offers a promising entryway that solves some of the piracy challenges that publishers meet with traditional packaged goods.
Nintendo knows firsthand about the piracy problems in Asia, even before this most recent raid. The game maker received $5 million in 2005 from Lik Sang, which allegedly distributed game copying devices. Hong Kong’s Bung Enterprises had to pay $7 million in a separate case involving piracy products.
News-Source: Next-Gen
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