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Taken from n-philes.com:
'Sega feels that The Simpsons Road Rage is too similar to their own Crazy Taxi (GCN, Xbox, DC) and have sued a division of Fox Entertainment for selling the game. Sega says that the title infringes on a Sega patent and the game was designed to deliberately copy and imitate Crazy Taxi. The lawsuit not only goes after Fox Interactive, but Vivendi Universal that now owns the company division, as well as the developer Radical Games Ltd. and publisher Electronic Arts.
Sega is asking for sales of Simpsons Road Rage be stopped and for reimbursement of lost profits. It has sold more than 1 million copies to date, further financial reason for Sega to go after them. Nothing has been said about the more recent Simpsons Hit & Run game.'
Hrmm...It sounds like Sega are perhaps getting a little bit desperate. If this goes through and wins (unlikely as it may seem), then any company that has made any platformers after Mario, should be sued by Nintendo. Or as someone said on the n-philes forum, Capcom could sue anyone who ever made a fighting game. Sega need to deal with this fact: Ideas get stolen (and Shigsy aparently knows it, with him being so secretive about Mario 128).
Although they do have a point about Road Rage being very similar, and I'm sure they own patents/copyrights on it, I don't think it can have stopped many Crazy Taxi Sales, Road Rage is a pretty awful game anyway. It just seems a bit too stupid on Sega's behalf to me, but anyway, what do you all think?
'Sega feels that The Simpsons Road Rage is too similar to their own Crazy Taxi (GCN, Xbox, DC) and have sued a division of Fox Entertainment for selling the game. Sega says that the title infringes on a Sega patent and the game was designed to deliberately copy and imitate Crazy Taxi. The lawsuit not only goes after Fox Interactive, but Vivendi Universal that now owns the company division, as well as the developer Radical Games Ltd. and publisher Electronic Arts.
Sega is asking for sales of Simpsons Road Rage be stopped and for reimbursement of lost profits. It has sold more than 1 million copies to date, further financial reason for Sega to go after them. Nothing has been said about the more recent Simpsons Hit & Run game.'
Hrmm...It sounds like Sega are perhaps getting a little bit desperate. If this goes through and wins (unlikely as it may seem), then any company that has made any platformers after Mario, should be sued by Nintendo. Or as someone said on the n-philes forum, Capcom could sue anyone who ever made a fighting game. Sega need to deal with this fact: Ideas get stolen (and Shigsy aparently knows it, with him being so secretive about Mario 128).
Although they do have a point about Road Rage being very similar, and I'm sure they own patents/copyrights on it, I don't think it can have stopped many Crazy Taxi Sales, Road Rage is a pretty awful game anyway. It just seems a bit too stupid on Sega's behalf to me, but anyway, what do you all think?
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How can you patent a genre?
Strafex wrote:
> Road Rage IS a blatant rip-off but there's no law against it.
There is if, as they claim, patent infringement.
> Road Rage IS a blatant rip-off but there's no law against it.
There is if, as they claim, patent infringement.
If you get good at it, Crazy Taxi 2 on the Dreamcast and Crazy Taxi 3 on the Xbox can become really intense. Excellent games, but not a lot of variety to them.
Simpsons Road Rage is a blatent rip-off with a few improvements, I believe Sega have every right to sue over this game. After all, they haven't even changed the way the timer works - picking up passengers adds bonus time, a big arrow tells you which way to go, etc, etc.
As for it being a poor game - As a salesman for a retailer, I have sold a huge amount of Simpsons Road Rage for Playstation 2 recently - it really is still bringing in the money for EA. Mainly because parents don't want to shell out for Hit & Run when they see there's a cheaper alternative.
So, its financially a good idea for Sega to sue if they win the case.
As for the Playstation and Nintendo taking legal action - if it really does happen, and Nintendo win, they'll get a huge fortune from Sony. However, if they did the case straight away, all they would manage to do is get the name changed. Whoo, that'll benefit Nintendo big time.
Simpsons Road Rage is a blatent rip-off with a few improvements, I believe Sega have every right to sue over this game. After all, they haven't even changed the way the timer works - picking up passengers adds bonus time, a big arrow tells you which way to go, etc, etc.
As for it being a poor game - As a salesman for a retailer, I have sold a huge amount of Simpsons Road Rage for Playstation 2 recently - it really is still bringing in the money for EA. Mainly because parents don't want to shell out for Hit & Run when they see there's a cheaper alternative.
So, its financially a good idea for Sega to sue if they win the case.
As for the Playstation and Nintendo taking legal action - if it really does happen, and Nintendo win, they'll get a huge fortune from Sony. However, if they did the case straight away, all they would manage to do is get the name changed. Whoo, that'll benefit Nintendo big time.
Dringo wrote:
> I thought that was one stupid made up thing?
Not from the report I read a while ago.
Something to do with Sony using the name given to one of the parts used for the SNES's development, or something along those lines.
It took them a number of years to find the acual violation they were searching for, so I hardly expect it to be made up.
> I thought that was one stupid made up thing?
Not from the report I read a while ago.
Something to do with Sony using the name given to one of the parts used for the SNES's development, or something along those lines.
It took them a number of years to find the acual violation they were searching for, so I hardly expect it to be made up.
AfroJoe wrote:
>
> Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony,
> although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are
> insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
I thought that was one stupid made up thing?
>
> Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony,
> although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are
> insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
I thought that was one stupid made up thing?
Indeed, and I'm not really sure why it was made an X-box exclusive (apart from Microsoft planting a bucket load of cash in Sega's pockets). Surely that would know that it would sell infinitely better on the PS2, or even maybe if went multi-format. Anyhoo, it's not like us GC owners missed out in particular, it was a bit pants anyway...
Road Rage IS a blatant rip-off but there's no law against it.
And as great as the original idea was on the Dreamcast, since then Sega have added absolutely NOTHING to improve it or take it further.
That's why it's not done so well on the "next gen" consoles.
And as great as the original idea was on the Dreamcast, since then Sega have added absolutely NOTHING to improve it or take it further.
That's why it's not done so well on the "next gen" consoles.
AfroJoe wrote:
> That's still an ongoing lawsuit.
>
> Things with such minor detail infringements take years to be solved,
> and that court case is still dragging on.
>
> Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony,
> although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are
> insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
I dont think that Nintendo will win the lawsuit actually.
Since they first had an agreement with Sony to produce a cd feature for the SNES but later broke it to make another deal with panasonic(the cd-option did not work well).
The original name for the cd-support was playstation but Nintendo ditched it for a name i cant remember for some reason.
It is also a bit suspicious that Nintendo started the lawsuit this year and not when the original playstation was first released.
> That's still an ongoing lawsuit.
>
> Things with such minor detail infringements take years to be solved,
> and that court case is still dragging on.
>
> Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony,
> although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are
> insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
I dont think that Nintendo will win the lawsuit actually.
Since they first had an agreement with Sony to produce a cd feature for the SNES but later broke it to make another deal with panasonic(the cd-option did not work well).
The original name for the cd-support was playstation but Nintendo ditched it for a name i cant remember for some reason.
It is also a bit suspicious that Nintendo started the lawsuit this year and not when the original playstation was first released.
That's still an ongoing lawsuit.
Things with such minor detail infringements take years to be solved, and that court case is still dragging on.
Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony, although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
Things with such minor detail infringements take years to be solved, and that court case is still dragging on.
Personally, I don't think Nintendo really don't need to sue Sony, although apparently they have every right to. All their lawyers are insisting Sony have violated some rule or something.
Did not Nintendo sue Sony for using the name playstation a while ago?
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