Rock Revolution Revolt: Viacom & Harmonix Sue Konami
Harmonix and Viacom are suing Konami over allegations that Konami's Rock Revolution violates a patent that is "an improvement of earlier video-game controllers that emulate musical instruments."
Rock Revolution released last October and failed to perform well, but more significantly, Konami filed a not-dissimilar patent suit against Viacom and Harmonix back in July of 2008: alleging that Rock Band infringes upon a pair of Konami patents for simulated musical instruments and related technology. After that suit, licenses for Konami's patents cropped up in Guitar Hero: World Tour. That leaves Rock Band as the standout.
Is Viacom's suit against Konami tit-for-tat or business as usual? In any event, Konami has lost 37% of its stock value since the beginning of the year; meanwhile Viacom, which is also down 15% since the new year, saw its stock rise after news of the suit broke.
Viacom, Harmonix Suing Konami Over Rock Revolution [Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany on 16 February 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: guitar hero world tour, harmonix, konami, rock band, rock revolution, viacom
Harmonix won't stop stealing games until something is done about it. Their counter lawsuit is utter bullshit. "Oh hey guys, lets counter sue for konami stealing our idea that we stole from them." Yeah that makes perfect frickin sense.
Burn in hell Harmonix.
I agree, it's childish of them to counter sue.
But still, I love the games they make. So this isn't something that really bothers me.
I also stand for Konami on this one. How do you patent innovation on existing products. That couldn't be any less stealing.
"Here I have developed a new and BETTER applesauce, and in this way no one may ever make apple sauce better than I, even though I did not invent applesauce."
I feel bad for Konami, I was part of the original BeMani...well...Mani-a. Harmonix didn't do anything that Konami had done before, they only slapped awful American rock music into it to appeal to an American audience. Does anyone know if they play Guitar Hero in Asia, or still Guitar Revolution?
EDIT: I mean "anything Konami DIDNT do already"
How the hell do you prefer J-pop over American and British rock!? J-pop is bullcrap.