In general, most of the news concerning Nintendo of late has only been positive, but nothing is ever that smooth in business. Recently, Greenpeace declared Nintendo the number one polluter in the gaming industry, and it seems other problems lurk on the horizon.

For example, the latest bad press to come Nintendo’s way concerns its innovative controllers. According to GameSpot, CIG(Copper Innovations Group) claims that the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 40GB controllers were patented by them in 1996. CIG has filed lawsuits against Nintendo and Sony which covers a method for connecting devices to a system and sorting their inputs by means of hardware identification numbers tied to each transmission.

According to the suit, Nintendo and Sony are violating the Copper Innovations Group’s patent by making and selling their systems and controllers. The Wii Remote, Wii Nunchuk, Sixaxis controller, and Blu-ray Remote Control are all named in the suit as infringing products.

It’s interesting to note that Sony is also named alongside Nintendo, but perhaps surprising to see no mention of the Microsoft Xbox 360 even though its controllers pretty much work in the same way as PS3 controllers do. Maybe Microsoft has already resolved this issue with CIG. Reg Hardware wonders if Microsoft hasn’t already licensed the technology off CIG or if it will also face legal action.

Sony and Microsoft have already been in court before with vibration firm Immersion concerning controllers. Time will tell how Nintendo and Sony handle this, but even in the event of losing legal action, it is more likely to result in heavy fines and licensing fees. As long as those costs are not passed on to the consumer, I don’t think that PS3 and Wii owners have something to worry about.

Photo: © zzathras777

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