Nintendo announces huge seizure in China of pirated games, highlighting country’s counterfeiting industry bestnintendodsgamesnow.com best nintendo ds games

AP Worldstream February 12, 2003 | JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer 00-00-0000 Dateline: BEIJING Authorities who raided factories in southern China in search of counterfeit Nintendo video games last month found games, packaging and components totaling some 300,000 items, including new titles released just weeks earlier, the company said Wednesday.

The announcement highlighted China’s enduring status as a major counterfeiter, despite periodic highly publicized crackdowns on pirate producers of goods ranging from music and videos to designer clothes and software.

China is the main source of counterfeit Nintendo games, a trade that cost the company US$649 million in lost sales last year, said Jodi Daugherty, antipiracy director for the Japanese game-maker’s American arm.

“It’s our top priority right now. The products are being assembled (in China) and then distributed worldwide, so we’re anxious to stop it at the source,” Daugherty said from Redmond, Washington, where Nintendo of America Inc. is based.

The seizures in January were equal to nearly one-third of the 1 million counterfeit Nintendo games and other items impounded last year in a total of 135 raids, Daugherty said.

The raids were carried out by Chinese commercial officials, rather than police, based on information from Nintendo’s own investigators, Daugherty said. She said no criminal penalties have been imposed, but fines imposed on Nintendo counterfeiters last year totaled US$80, 000.

The January seizures and most raids last year took place in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong and is a center of China’s thriving counterfeit industry. see here best nintendo ds games

Such product piracy has been a key complaint by China’s trading partners, including the United States.

Such enforcement is required by China’s membership in the World Trade Organization, a global rules-making body that it joined in 2001 with promises to crack down on piracy and fake products.

It has made a practice of publicly destroying masses of fake goods, especially CDs and DVDs, though critics say it still has a long way to go. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a trade group, estimates China’s piracy of entertainment and computer goods cost businesses US$979 million in lost sales in 2000.

Nintendo’s experience illustrates the ordeals that even the most technically sophisticated companies face in trying to combat determined counterfeiters.

Nintendo encodes its game software and makes key components itself under tight security instead of entrusting work to outside contractors, Daugherty said.

Nevertheless, she said, Chinese counterfeiters are equipped with technology that lets them decode the software and burn it into their own computer chips.

Products seized in January included some of the newest Nintendo games _ “Pokemon Ruby” and “Pokemon Sapphire” _ that had been released only weeks earlier in Japan, Daugherty said.

“Those were our hottest titles,” she said, “and there they were, all counterfeited.”

JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer