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http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/26/capcom-sues-koei-tecmo-over-patent-infringement
According to Japanese news site Sankei, Capcom is suing fellow publisher Koei Tecmo for multiple cases of patent infringement.
The exact contents of the patents are yet unknown, but alleged infringements include a number of functions found within key games, including the ability to import or content from an old title to a new one, disc-based expansions, and controller vibrations to warn when enemies are nearby.
Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends and 49 other games have been cited in the lawsuit. Along with roughly $9.43 million USD in damages, Capcom is also calling for many of the sales of these games to be suspended.
According to Capcom, the games in question containing said patent infringements have "greatly contributed to the sales" of Koei Tecmo, and wants to claim 5-10 percent in license fees.
Capcom has apparently become a giant floppy dong when I wasn't looking.
It tickles me pink that they're suing over stuff like, disc-based expansions and importing content from older game titles to newer game titles.
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That's just... pretty awful.
Disc-based expansions and imported content is something almost every gaming company in the world has done.
Will Capcom now sue Microsoft for the disc-based expansions of the Age of Empires series?
What about Bioware/EA because of Mass Effect and the imported content there?
You mean, like, the Gold Box series of RPGs?
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As far as I know it started with Wizardry 2, which came out in 1982. But the article could be simplifying the wording; patent language is often extremely specific, so it could very well say something like "...by means of searching a console's hard drive for the save file and cross checking it against blah blah blah..."
sheeyit even the og Wizardry games let you do that
but you know, a true patent troll doesn't let bullshit like prior art stop them from collecting that phat shakedown cash
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For shame.
Koei's defense lawyer should totally be dressed up like Phoenix Wright when they object to this.
His resume includes:
"Cancel all Mega Man games, even ones that are done."
"Release endless reboots and HD remakes."
"Continue to lose rights to Marvel games, pay to get them back only when convenient. "
"All DLC on-disc."
"Sue everyone for also making video games."
"Generally fart in our customers faces."
How'd you get ahold of details for the next Phoenix Wright game?
Because I'm sure Capcom is about to get the Mother of All Ass Whoopings.
It still strikes me as one of those "No fuckwad, you can't patent that". Along with the vibration thing, what is wrong with you?
This'll be the crossbow bolt in the brain in the zombiefied corpse.
And sadly, Wolfman, the patent system doesn't work that way (see mini games during loading screens, dialogue rings, etc)...
It's to encourage innovation, obviously.
Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends is a PS2 game... came out in 2004 (I still have my disc, lolol). The other 50 games are no doubt iterations within the Musou franchise (because they all did this). For example, Dynasty Warriors 3XL did the same thing, and came out before SW XL. I guess they reference Samurai Warriors XL as the example becuase Sengoku Basara is basically "Xtreme Samurai Warriors: XXX?"
I don't know what game vibrates the controller though.
Because they're running out of money and are desperate.
But think of how awesome it will be when Megaman is playable in Hyrule Warriors following Capcom's loss, spiral into bankruptcy and purchase by Nintendo.
Yeah, I guess desperation is the only real motivation for them to do this because it definitely doesn't seem like a "long-run" play. If they manage to get the sales of the Musou series blocked I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing that would genuinely make a lot of people not buy Capcom anymore on principle alone.
Didn't somebody else sue like this recently? Did they win or lose?
Step one is to stop selling games.
Step two is to stop Koei from selling games.
Pattern???
I still want a new Dragons Dogma game because it was awesome.
Then again, just because you're making money doesn't mean that stops the desire to make more money.
This kind of shit actually happens all the time, though on a much smaller scale. The difference here is that Capcom's waging a giant assault rather than trying to patent one or two specific game mechanics.
As someone who makes quarterly reports, they are ALWAYS made to show profit if you can at all finagle them to do so. They're not a really good way to say yes or no we're losing money.
And that quaterly report is nowhere near "pretty damn profitable" it's more "we're just getting by we need to do something soon or this drop will continue and get more severe".
They can, but there's always that pesky GAAP thing, which requires the results to play by the rules. I haven't seen anything that would indicate it's non-GAAP. Especially since I've seen more than a few Capcom reports in the past that reported a loss.
And while the profit fell, the profit is still far too large to engage in this as a "desperation move."
The time for Sengoku Basara vs Sengoku Musou vs Dead or Alive vs Street Fighter : Extreme Beach Volleyball is at hand.
I'm pretty ok with this.
Going back further, what about sonic vs knuckles for the genesis, this kind of did this as well.
To you and me, yeah. To a (possibly insane) corp exec, probably no.