Philips sues Nintendo because of Wii mote !?

[DaMummy]

or they waited to see if the WiiU would be successful and could get their claws into that as well

 

[thatgui]

And I bet you anything that the only reason Philips waited this long to sue Nintendo is because it took this long for their lawyers to even realize they had a patent that could be used against Nintendo. That, or they waited for Wii to stop selling so Nintendo couldn't redesign the technology to get out of further license fees.

This may be wrong, but according to the news sites I visited, Philips has been trying to settle it since they first made it aware to Nintendo somewhere in 2011.

 

[WizardStan]

Philips has been trying to settle it since they first made it aware to Nintendo somewhere in 2011.

That's still 5 years after release, and pushing for settlement for 3 years.Why wait so long after release to bring up your patent: either it took that long to realize you owned a relevant patent or you were waiting until you were sure there was enough money to be made to make a settlement worthwhile.

Why keep pushing for a settlement for 3 years? Usually those negotiations are finished in months if not weeks and you either have your settlement or you initiate a lawsuit.

Philips is almost certainly in the legal right on this, but the whole thing reeks of the same morals as a classic patent troll.

 

[Askarus]

Philips is almost certainly in the legal right on this

So what do you think is affected?

Only the Wii mote and Sensor Bar or also the Wii U console?

Wii console can run without Wii mote but is capable of using the Wii Mote.

Would it be enough to remove the Wii mote and sensor bars from market or has the whole console to be removed.

(Let's assume there is no other way to handle it than to ban the forbidden technology. Just hypothetical.)

 

[WizardStan]

I can't even guess. Could be it is just enough that they no longer ship with the WiiMote and sensor bar, and of course not sell any official replacements. It'd suck if everyone had to buy third party controllers.

Or it may be that since the Wii/WiiU support such a feature at all they cannot be sold either. I don't know what the judge'll do.

 

[rygD]

Wouldn't it just mean that Nintendo has to give them a cut of every future Wii/Wii U/Wiimote sale?  I have extremely limited knowledge of this sort of thing.

Edit:  And a percentage of past sales, or just a big chunk of money.

 

[Askarus]

That's the most likely thing.

I was thinking hypothetical.

What might be the thing that's illegal and what not.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Now Nintendo needs to check their patents list and see if Philips and father Christmas, have tenuously infringed any.

 

[WizardStan]

Wouldn't it just mean that Nintendo has to give them a cut of every future Wii/Wii U/Wiimote sale?

That's what Philips has been trying to settle for. If Nintendo refuses they may get an injunction on all sales until Nintendo either agrees to pay them or successfully fights the patents.

 

[Majin Wamu]

I thought they were suing because the article said something about having a camera and a sensor bar attached.

Yes, that's the wiimote.

Aw! I see. The wiimote. I thought it was the senor attached to the wii pad. Okay thanks.

The so called "sensor bar" is not a sensor at all, just some IR LEDs mounted on either end of the bar. The Wiimote "sees" the IR LEDs via it's IR camera and uses this to calculate which way it is pointing. IIRC, during one of the calibration steps on the Wii the output from the IR camera is shown on screen.

Doesn't have to be LEDs either, any source of IR radiation works, even a pair of candles.

Yeah I know about the lights. Before I got the Wiimote plus I used to use two candles for my sensor bar. But yeah, I already knew about the sensor bar trick, but they still call it a sensor bar.

 

[bzar]

the Wii U is not

It isn't that bad. The media spins it a lot worse than it actually is, making a self fulfilling prophecy.

Wii U sales are almost exactly between XB1 and PS4 (June 14 2014).

 

[Exophase]

Wii U sales are almost exactly between XB1 and PS4 (June 14 2014).

Which isn't saying that much considering XBox One and PS4 have been out 7 months while Wii U has been out 19 months, and XBox One is still not out in Japan.

It's not as bad as some say, and some really heavy hitting first party releases are helping a lot, but it's still pretty bad. Much worse than Nintendo's projections and a far cry from Wii's performance under similar timescales. But success and failure is kind of arbitrary here. The only metric that really makes sense is if Nintendo loses money on it in the long run, which I think won't happen. They almost certainly won't get first place vs Sony, but it's possible they could retain second place.

What I don't think will happen is a 3DS-like turnaround, which is something many are drawing parallels to. And I say this because Nintendo blew it with third parties and I don't expect that damage to ever be undone to much extent. Unlike 3DS which has lots of good third party games.

That's what Philips has been trying to settle for. If Nintendo refuses they may get an injunction on all sales until Nintendo either agrees to pay them or successfully fights the patents.

The court can sentence royalties as well (including a fine for prior sales). And I'm sure that's what Philips will request. Blocking sales of Nintendo products doesn't benefit Philips at all, actually I think there'd be pretty severe backlash against their brand if they did this.

 

[DaMummy]

Speaking for myself only, and not what some think would be better for nintendo,sony or xbox, I'd rather see Sony and Xbox pack things up and Nintendo to keep doing what theyre doing. I'm more than happy with my Nintendos and my PC, and all I'm seeing from playstation and xbox is toning down PC games, some in which just get ported over to PC from those consoles in a really shitty way. At least Nintendo is giving me something I'm not getting on my PC

 

[bzar]

Wii U sales are almost exactly between XB1 and PS4 (June 14 2014).

Which isn't saying that much considering XBox One and PS4 have been out 7 months while Wii U has been out 19 months, and XBox One is still not out in Japan.

Nevertheless, it's the current situation. Comparing sales based on anything but the current numbers is comparing speculations. If there's sales velocity numbers somewhere I'd be willing to compare projections based on those, but even that won't be reliable. I'm not saying WiiU sales are great, but some would have you believe it's sitting in the dust of both PS4 and XB1. As it stands, it's not.
Before evidence to the contrary presents itself, XB1 is the worst selling console this generation

It's not as bad as some say, and some really heavy hitting first party releases are helping a lot, but it's still pretty bad. Much worse than Nintendo's projections and a far cry from Wii's performance under similar timescales. But success and failure is kind of arbitrary here. The only metric that really makes sense is if Nintendo loses money on it in the long run, which I think won't happen. They almost certainly won't get first place vs Sony, but it's possible they could retain second place.

That I can agree on. Many seem to be only interested in "who wins the console wars this generation", which I think is beside the point. The relevant points are the amount of fun the customers get and the amount of money the producers get. I don't think nintendo will do bad in either this generation.

What I don't think will happen is a 3DS-like turnaround, which is something many are drawing parallels to. And I say this because Nintendo blew it with third parties and I don't expect that damage to ever be undone to much extent. Unlike 3DS which has lots of good third party games.

Yeah, that's probably true. Although I would like to see that happen, I think it'll be up to nintendo to create most of the sales. As usual

 

[Klumpen]

Although I personally hate motion controls, at least Nintendo makes something out of those innovations (which always more than one company comes up with)  and does not let them gather dust,

they just have to get over their always too low resolution (really, it was the case since SNES) which they did now at least on their stationary console branch.

 

[Askarus]

Although I personally hate motion controls, at least Nintendo makes something out of those innovations (which always more than one company comes up with)  and does not let them gather dust,

they just have to get over their always too low resolution (really, it was the case since SNES) which they did now at least on their stationary console branch.

So you don't like the crystal clear 3DS XL with it's 240x400 resolution?

Don't you enjoy every pixel being visible, even at a large distance?