Tech Shout!

Nintendo of America is absolutely infuriated with the existing software piracy, which is costing the company a humungous hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Speaking on this issue, Nintendo of America’s anti-piracy head Jodi Daugherty said, “The unprecedented momentum enjoyed by Nintendo DS and Wii makes Nintendo an attractive target for counterfeiters.”

Daugherty continued, “We estimate that in 2007, Nintendo, together with its publishers and developers, suffered nearly $975 million USD worldwide in lost sales as a result of piracy. Nintendo will continue to work with governments around the world to aggressively curtail this illegal activity.”

In view of the rampant piracy, on Thursday, Nintendo asked the US Trade Representative to induce particular governments worldwide to take a firmer stand on piracy. The company’s comments were filed under a “Special 301″ process, where the U.S. Trade Representative seeks input from the public about specific areas of concern.

Whilst speaking about the various problem markets, special emphasis was thrown on the ones at China, Korea, Brazil, Hong Kong, Paraguay and Mexico. And amongst these China was quoted as being the most problematic one. Nintendo touted it to be “the primary source” for pirated DS and Wii titles. In fact the game maker stated that in 2007, it has worked with Chinese officials to seize 1 million counterfeit Nintendo products, however “not one” fraudster has been put on trial.

On the other hand, whilst speaking about the Korean market Nintendo said that it “has emerged as the leader in distributing illegal game files via the Internet.”

Latin America was tagged as the “a haven for piracy” by Nintendo.

Nintendo’s move to advocate stronger laws in all countries against the evasion of technological security measures - such as game-copying devices and mod chips, seems quite logical.