Nintendo Facing Lawsuit To Ban WIi U Sales In The U.S.

To paraphrase David Letterman, we wouldn’t give Nintendo’s troubles to a monkey on a rock. Amid a terrible sales performance that only got worse over the first quarter of this year (Nintendo president Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut over the the Wii U’s awful sales back in January) and a mini-scandal when word emerged that users couldn’t be same-sex couples in the 3DS handheld console game Tomodachi Life (an oversight for which Nintendo has apologized), the company has a lawsuit on its hands.


Philips is suing Nintendo over two potential patent infringements. The first concerns a “virtual body control device”, which pertains to essentially all the Wii controllers. The other is a “User Interface System Based on Pointing Device”, or human-computer interaction systems (HCI). This applies to the Wii, Wii U, Wii U GamePad, Wii Mini, and the Wii Remote Plus Controller.

Philips wants to be paid for its trouble and is also seeking to ban sales of infringing Nintendo products in the U.S. The company alleges that Nintendo ignored its overtures regarding potential patent infringements.

The suit asks for a jury trial, so Nintendo will have this case hanging over its head for a while--and at a time that is utterly inconvenient, to say the least.