Sega’s lawsuit against Level-5 over the controls in Inazuma Eleven has also gotten Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft thrown into the mix for breaking Sega’s patents.
Level-5 argues that the stylus control patent was granted back in 2009 while the Inazuma Eleven games were released in 2008 which makes Sega’s lawsuit worthless. Sega has fought back by saying that the patent was filed back in 2004 and was made retroactive to cover that time period.
Sega has also announced that they are going after Nintendo over the releases of the Nintendo DS, 3DS and Wii U for all using stylus controls when Sega had the idea first. The suit also covers many games and ideas including Super Mario 64 DS, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and the Miiverse drawing concept.
Sony is also being targeted by Sega through the finger control patent that was broken when the PlayStation Vita was released. The suit lists both the front-facing touch screen as well as the rear touch pad being integral to the case. This suit also covers many games that utilize touch controls including LittleBigPlanet, Little Deviants, and Sound Shapes.
Not through with the major consoles players yet, Sega has also named Microsoft in the suit by saying that the new Surface tablet which can play games has also broken their patents. While Sega has not listed any games on the Surface under the suit, they have listed both the Surface and Surface Pro as major violators of Sega’s patents.
Sega released the following statement regarding the lawsuits:
We should have been the Apple of the gaming industry. The Dreamcast was far too advanced for its time and the masses rejected it when the three major console developers dumbed down everything about gaming and closed everyone’s eyes to the innovation of the Dreamcast. We took a page from our idol and took it upon ourselves to rectify a wrong through these lawsuits. Our ideas have been abused by these companies for years and its time that we claim what is rightfully ours.
None of the three console companies or Level-5 has commented on Sega’s revised lawsuit. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, says that he is proud that Sega is following Apple’s course of action and advised Sega to also go after Samsung.
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I really hope Sega wins this one. It was wrong of all these companies to just steal their copyrighted idea without giving Sega any recognition or royalties.
Maybe after the Sony, M$ and Nintendon’t all go under Sega can reclaim its rightful place as the leader of the video game console market.
Like so many geniuses, they were ahead of their time. You can still see the lasting damage of the crushing disappointment in Sonic ’06, they deserve compensation.
When will your thieving stop Nintendo? On top of releasing a half finished 6 year old console you still have the guts to steal Sega’s ideas. Your desperation SICKENS ME!
heres what i want the 3 consoles owners to get sewed but leave the game devs out of it because game devs have to conform to console controls
I don’t think the Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft things are real. level-5 is real, but I can’t fully trust this website.