14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo is announcing that it has managed to win a lawsuit against an Australian pirate who made copies of New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii before the game actually hit the shelves.
James Burt, who hails from Queensland, has settled with Nintendo out of court to pay damages in amount of 1.5 million Australian dollars, which is about 1.3 million American dollars, and to cover the legal bills Nintendo has accrued for the trial. The problem is that the publisher is now talking about using this precedent as a basis to limit its publishing efforts on the Australian market.
Nintendo is saying that it has deployed “sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution” and that it has acted because one of its biggest titles, New Super Mario Bros., was made available before the actual launch date.
The game was slated to appear on November 12, 2009 and copies were illegally offered beginning with November 6. It was one of the rare occasions when a high-profile title was launched in Australia before it arrived in Europe or in North America.
A spokesperson for the gaming company told GameSpot Australia that “Nintendo Australia is always pushing for games to be released here at the same time as the rest of the world, so we were pleased to get New Super Mario Bros. Wii before anyone else. Unfortunately, due to the actions of this individual, future release dates may be affected for Australia, which is disappointing for us.”
The problem is that delaying the Australian release date for high-profile Nintendo games might backfire and lead to an increase in the level of piracy as gamers grow tired of waiting for a title to be officially out and get it through other means.