Konami sues Harmonix and MTV News

Go Konami, If you win, maybe you can use the cash to make some next-gen Goemon, Parodius and Contra games, as opposed to all that Bemani shit you seem to pride yourself on these days...

Just remove the arrow docks and it'll allllllllll be fine.

This is hilarious if you follow Konami based news. Most hardcore DDR fans will tell you Konami are the devil (I'm friends with one) and on reading into it, they do actually sound like massive pricks. I vaguely recall them discontinuing a certain DDR game, then shitting lawsuits everywhere when a fan-made update hit the internet.

Pissing in the wind...

Laughable. Why on Earth aren't they sueing Red Octane as well?

What's next? Gibson sues Konami for making a game with a "guitar"?

What tools. I hope they don't win, because that Rock Revolution game looks shite.

There's no chance in hell that they'll win.

Unless they beat the devil in a Guitar Battle. Which I still can't do on hard. It makes me cry sometimes.

Hey Konami, when you file a fucking patent, fucking use it, fuckmorons.

In fairness, they have been producing Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania games for arcades and home consoles on a regular basis for years and years. It's just that they never really made it in the US / Europe, for whatever reason (lack of locally licensed tracks, I suspect).

That said, this kind of patent case is fundamentally an abuse of the whole patent system, and any company who engages in stuff like this is automatically in the sin bin - it's damaging, anti-competitive, anti-consumer nonsense.

->Company takes out patent.

-> Other company releases news about game that might infringe patent.

-> Company with patent say nothing and wait patiently to see if other companies patent infringing product makes shed loads of money.

-> Company who infringed patent make shed loads of money.

-> Company who own patent suddenly get angry and sue over patent infringements.

Done!

Well if they sue the competitors out of the market, Rock Revolution will be a success, right?

Right?

I doubt this will have anything to do with Guitars, its the scrolling notation used for the vocalist player. Its exactly the same system as Karaoke revolution - a Konami patent, despite being originally developed by Harmonix.

KR has 7 titles in the US & 7 in Japan - far more content than GH or rockband. The people who invented and patented this idea are more than welcome try and stop it being ripped off IMO

you snooze, you lose... lazy konami

I was wondering when they would get around to doing this...

Konami aren't pricks in that case though. This lawsuit is one of the few that is actually valid. If you look at the guitarhero.com website, take a loot at the footnotes:

Guitar Hero © 2008 Activision Publishing, Inc. Guitar Hero, Activision, and RedOctane are registered trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc Covered by one or more of the following patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 5,739,457, 6,018,121, 6,225,547, 6,347,998, 6,369,313, 6,390,923, 6,425,822, 6,645,067 and 6,835,887

Activision paid for the patents by Konami with the Guitar Hero franchise - MTV/Viacom didn't. That's a very important detail because that doesn't mean that Konami is just now realizing that there's money to make but that MTV/Viacom indeed voilate those patents.

Are we gonna get a comment from EA like 'guitars are so last gen' now? ;)

So if you can't beat them, sue them?

...and in other news, EA contunue to push over all the other devs in the playground...

Hey Konami, when you file a fucking patent, fucking use it, fuckmorons.

Exactly.

Piss off Konami. Spend your time trying to fix the bag of shite that is now PES.
1 of your only decent franchises that you have destroyed.. . . .

@Der_tolle_Emil

Well spotted. I wonder if the discussion will now follow that line of inquiry, or whether everyone will ignore it so they can continue to be angry. I don't know either way what exactly is going on here, but I would like to find out. I'm funny like that.

Konami have successfully sued other companies infringing on its music patents before.

Considering Activision already pay them a fair amount to use the patents, The Rock Band peeps really dont have a chance of winning this one, otherwise surely Activision could counter-sue and demand their money back from Konami on the grounds that two identical games should either both have to pay for the use of the patents or both not.

Let me get this right. You guys are now defending Harmonix. The company that blatantly overpriced in europe and pretty much took your money while bending you over the back of a chair and lubing up. While Konami arguably thought up the whole concept of instruments with an arcade music game, made a tonne of them years before Harmonix even existed and now wnat legitimate monies from them for nicking the idea........

Seems straightforward enough. If Konami own the patents and Activision/RedOctane pony up and pay for their usage then so should Harmonix/MTV.

Methinks, Konami were crafty and waited for the game to be launched and then sued them when the game was on the shelves. This stuffs EA big time as they are in a quandry of having to pull games form the shelves pending trial and makes their position that more uncomfortable. Therefore I think they will be looking to settle rather than drag the issue out.

Well spotted. I wonder if the discussion will now follow that line of inquiry, or whether everyone will ignore it so they can continue to be angry.

Probably the latter. But seeing the latest lawsuits it's not that surprising. Firms noone has ever heard of claiming to own patents for products that were never even manufactured and don't even have that much in common with the actual devices that supposedly infringe patents.

This time though it's not a no-name company that released the controllers in question a couple of years ago (even if those are only really popular in Japanese arcades) and they are pretty much the same like the new ones - and they already got paid by other firms using guitar controllers so it's pretty obvious why they are suing Viacom.

I support Konami, especially considering the price of Rock Band, which was higher than Guitar Hero's although Viacom doesn't even have to factor in the licensing fees for the patents like RedOctane had to and RB was still more expensive.

By the way, it's ridiculous to say that Konami shouldn't sue because they didn't release the games here in Europe. The iPhone wasn't available here in Europe for a very long time, Microsoft's Zune still isn't available in Europe. So if a company rips off those products and releases them here, would you say Apple doesn't have the right to sue then?

Konami's products are real, just not very well known here, that's all.

Der_tolle_Emil,

Apple have been sued themselves as Creative claimed the ipod ripped off on of their patents! ;)

By the way, it's ridiculous to say that Konami shouldn't sue because they didn't release the games here in Europe

Ironically, if they only released the games in Europe, they wouldn't be able to sue at all.

Software patents are an American thing. They're not enforceable in Europe.

tbh im still miffed enough about Rock Bands Euro price that i would laugh my ass off if Harmonix got fucked over, I realise they aren't the publisher... but they did go on record trying to defend it, so fuck em.
I normally hate the idea that someone can patent extremely vague ideas and sue the shit out of anyone they feel like...
but... karma... yeah.

"tbh im still miffed enough about Rock Bands Euro price that i would laugh my ass off if Harmonix got fucked over, I realise they aren't the publisher... but they did go on record trying to defend it, so fuck em. "

What a ridiculous statement. What did you expect them to say 'Oh, yeah. That's way expensive. You probably shouldn't buy the game we made at that price...'? Besides, anyone can find the game for less than the RRP. Not saying it's cheap, or fair, but just that everyone possibly over-reacted a touch at the start.

Fuck. Right. Off.

@actionfitz
+1

@InsoFox
Harmonix should've kept their mouths shut. Like how they said Band World Tour would be fixed and made online via a patch, but instead they're now rushing out RB2 and charging RRP for it. So much for the RB brand being a "platform" and not a "yearly franchise".