Nintendo estimates it lost $975m worldwide in 2007 due to piracy
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 14th 2008 11:25PM
posted February 14th 2008 11:25PM
We're always a little skeptical of piracy impact numbers, especially when companies try to factor in things like "lost sales," which can't be adequately measured, but it's still interesting to hear how large the hit is estimated to be -- like Nintendo's recent filing with the US Trade Representative that piracy cost it and its partners some $975m worldwide in 2007. Saying that the popularity of the Wii and DS makes Nintendo an "attractive target" for counterfeiters, the big N broke the problem down by region, highlighting its efforts to stem the tide and proposed solutions and regulations. We'd say that with profits soaring and plenty of people clamoring for hard-to-find systems, Nintendo could probably get back a little of that cash by finally getting some boxes on shelves instead of pushing for new laws, but hey -- even Mario's lawyers probably get sick of being paid in mushrooms.[Image courtesy of Nick Cueva]
They're full of it. They always present all these inflated numbers for "shock and awe." Just like the RIAA said early this month that they're numbers they presented to the public were higher than they actually are. So, considering that they managed to "affect" the political power of some politicians to pass certain laws, wouldn't that qualify their data as "libel" and "slander"?
I love reading these numbers. It's like they translate every pirated game into a lost sale.
HA! I laugh at your extreme optimism.
Pirates were never going to buy the games in the first place. Ever. That's the whole reason they pirated it--because they didn't want to pay.
Nintendo lost this $975m like I lost my Jaguar--meaning, I never had it so the fact that I still don't have it after wanting it really, REALLY badly one means that I was robbed.
Nope. Sorry Nintendo. That math just don't work like that. A sale is a sale. But a lack of a sale is not a loss of a potential sale.
Maybe you aren't selling that many games because you make 10x the games for every single console? How about scaling back the game production and get actual consoles out to your customers?
Or offer some Online play that isn't so goddamn awful to use? Lets see...
Wii: Talk to friend, write down their friend code, give them my friend code, go home, input friend code, wait for friend to input friend code, wait for them both to be authorized, send message to friend to verify it worked, and finally start game.
Xbox: Put game in, Log into Live, find open server, click join.
Hmm... I wonder which one is easier and would draw more people to playing. Oh, and I forgot to mention that each game has it's own friend code. And they aren't interchangeable. And they have to be entered via an on screen keyboard that is wonky at best.
And the best part about this rant? I actually LIKE the Wii! I can't imagine what people who don't like the Wii have to say about you, Nintendo.
So quit your bellyaching and start looking at getting more consoles into the hands of players. More consoles == more game sales. And that is math that adds up.
"Nintendo lost this $975m like I lost my Jaguar--meaning, I never had it so the fact that I still don't have it after wanting it really, REALLY badly one means that I was robbed."
lol since we're on the subject of video games, I immediately assumed you were speaking of an Atari Jaguar here. =/
No, I had one of those. There were some really classic games on there--Tempest 2000, AVP, Flashback, Iron Soldier, whatever that driving game was where you were a little car driving around in a house...
Oh, and the good thing about that is that they opened up the console. Anybody can make games or whatever for it now. Something Nintendo should have done with the NES and the Gameboy.
Dum & Dummer = general public = companies = over charging = greed
not a lawyer or anything but id be happy to be paid in mushrooms ;)
I can tell you this much that these figures should always be taken with a pinch of salt, or rather a whole lot of it.....its pretty common for firms to hike the numbers up.
And i think this number is particularly odd...considering how they have cracked down on Wii modchips ....heck i have been unable to mod my wii so far, and it breaks my bank to buy new games all the time!
what no comments on our nerdy pirate in the title photo? what's he holding anyway?
nm, i've been living in a cave. =)
You can't compare Anime piracy to any other type of piracy out there. Anime is the buisness it is now, because of piracy. ADV, Manga, Anime Works, blah blah blah, all... started out with people who were active in the subbing community and wanted to turn a profit at it. Japanese animators used to put little easter eggs inside episodes just for the subbing community. Heck, I can think of anime that came right out and thanked the international subbing community in the closing credits because it got those groups got it to a larger audience than it ever would have hit on broadcast TV. More to the point though, you cannot point to lagging sales figures and say "Anime is doing bad because..". There are many reasons. Currently the video game industry is a huge drain on the limited resources of talented writers, animators, directors, et all. Why? Well, costs of producing a Triple A anime title has been steadily going up as people want/get used to higher quality animation, which means more expensive CGI, or more time spent per still. Video games have the same rising costs but, a hit video game actually requires a smaller absolute value of people to consume your product. The video game in turn is also a larger return on investment, so people working on video games make more. Then lets not get into the fact that a lot of outside capital that used to be in the anime industry is there that never used to be there. Pioneer, ADV, ForKids, Tokyo Pop. All of them invest in anime, but, they add strings to it, strings that never used to be on the industry. Japan doesn't just make anime for japan now, that a few outsiders may enjoy. Anime has gone mainstream, they make anime for the masses of the world now, and alot of creative license did go the way of the dodo in that happening. I am tired of people making an arguement from one set of facts, without looking at the entire picture.
:) Ah its so interesting when companies try to bullshit us with these estimated numbers. First off, piracy on the Wii is total bullshit. There's no way(at least that I've heard of)to do that at the moment, so pirating Wii games is a no go. As far as the selling of fake consoles(like the Vii),no self-respecting gamer would actually buy one of those or is anyone going to mistake it for a Wii. If anyone actually bought one of those knockoffs, it's someone who can't afford the extra money to buy a Wii in the third world countries. Yeah, I wish everyone could enjoy good quality games, but sadly life isn't like that. The only place where piracy is for Nintendo is in the DS.People pirating Nintendo DS games using flash carts like the R4, but even with that it still doesn't go no way near $975m in profit lost. That's because the amount of people who own a DS flash cart is a small number compared to the amount of Nintendo DSs sold last year(yea it's an estimate but if Nintendo can make em, so can I ^_^). A good amount of DS owners are casual gamers, so they don't know anything about video game piracy, much less to purchase something like a R4. Even if you own something like a R4 doesn't mean you automatically pirate games with it, the R4's mean purpose is homebrew. Although it's a little far stretched to say, I've heard some people only use R4s for homebrew software, and to backup games they own, so they don't have to carry ten plus DS games on the go. Bottom line is the 975m profit loss is bogus, unless they factored in piracy of old video console games(like snes), but they aren't selling those anymore so why should they care. Yo Nintendo, instead of coming up with stupid estimates try increasing the supply of Wiis to the U.S., I'm still trying to get one(and no I'm not taking a rain check or paying double the price off ebay.)
Dude. You are an idiot.
Look up Yaosm or D2CKey on Google.
Yeah. It's possible. Cheap too.
@ Alexander
Thanks for pointing that out about the Wii piracy. Even with that added into everything though, still doesn't add up to $975m loss for Nintendo.
I don't believe this, nintendo has probably made billions off the wii. I doubt people are rushing out to get mod chips for the wii, and soldering them in place. A small percentage, yeah, but not 975million dollars worth
I really doubt they counted everypirated game as a sale, since it would be 19 million of pirated games in 2007, very low for a world wide figure given the number of nintendo consoles sold to date. Does it mean that those numbers are accurate? i dont think it so. Still, those numbers are sad news, piracy it's bad for the industry.
I don't even know why anyone is taking these numbers at face value.
Few problems:
1) Nintendo isn't revealing where the dollar amount came from. Just throws it out there and claims its the truth.
2) They have no idea what pervasive piracy is or isn't...so they manufacture a number and almost every value that follows is from that.
3) They assume a 1:1 ratio. In other words if they estimate 10 million in pirated games out there, they assume thats 10 million sales they didn't get. Since the average retail of a game is $50 (whether true or not) then they just lost $50 million in sales. Which isn't true either.
Its the same tactics of the RIAA. If the numbers where based on scientific data and proveable information, they would have no reason to keep the methodology secret, but these companies consistently do that and sadly the press is too lazy to investigate and ask why. The number itself is just to sensational to pass up.
yarr yarr fiddle de dee
if you love to sale the sea
yarr yarr fiddle de dee
you are a pirate!
the term is "thief"
erm no.. its a song from Lazy Town.. keep up..
/just realises he mispelt sail..
I'm quite aware of idiotic internet fads.
eh? you can internet fad my left nut... its a childrens program and guess what.. my son watches it, hence I have seen it about a million times (it feels like!). What are you being deliverately obtuse?
Get an external hard drive for your stored data. If your laptop gets lost it will not be lost of you data compromised. Best Buy will not pay near as much out in this lawsuit. The lawyers, however, will make a killing. Just my opinion.
Piracy almost killed music in the era of cassette tapes!
Errm.. No. That did not sound right now did it?
Take 2:
Because of the ease of copying cassette tapes the music industry declined!
Hhmm.. A bit better, except that the industry actually grew bigger? Damn.
Take 3:
Losses from piracy in the cassette tape era in the music industry are estimated at $3.2b
Now that's more like it!!!
We must feel like criminals when pirating but they don't feel like criminals when overcharging. Right.. God I feel so like an outlaw. Me and 2PAC.. Damn I am bad.
I estimate every person on earth loses at the very least 15% of his income to the shady/illegal/shouldbeillegal practises of big companies, and I mean at the very least.
So that's how much? 1000 trillion dollar?
must be because of that "R4" card thingy for DS
I heard you can just download games tru that, isn't that right?
*i don't have a DS >
975/(67.18(number of ds sold)+21.49(wii sold))= 10.995
So it means that per console sold, they loose 11$,
that not even a pirated game per individual...
(considering that one console = one person)
Guys you want to avoid piracy... do the same as mp3.
Online stores, lower prices.
We have mass storage, big bandwidth...
Today it's easier to backup all your ds games on a SD card,
than taking all your library with you...
why sticking to old school habits?
but they make $13 per console in Japan, $49 in the USA and $79 in Europe.
What is to be skeptical about? Every time you steal an NES or SNES rom that IS piracy, and that IS money out of nintendos VC profits. Piracy isn't just gamecube and wii modchips, and I think if anything they're underestimating.
A quick search of The Pirate Bay shows a torrent of an snes emulator with 786 snes roms. 118 leachers, 84 seeders. Know how much that one torrent alone amounts to? Roughly 100,000 USD. That's a pretty big chunk of change.
but if you don't plan on buying it in the first place it isn't a loss.
If you have the product and didn't pay for it, yes, it is a loss.
If we're going into hypotheticals, who is to say you weren't going to buy it if it wasn't so easy to steal?
"A quick search of The Pirate Bay shows a torrent of an snes emulator with 786 snes roms. 118 leachers, 84 seeders. Know how much that one torrent alone amounts to? Roughly 100,000 USD. That's a pretty big chunk of change."
Poor example, because unless somewhere in the world they have a factory I'm not aware of, Nintendo hasn't made SNES carts in years. If it's abandonware, as far as I'm concerned, it's not pirating.
From my perspective, as soon as I can return games that suck, I'll stop downloading them and trying them first. Nothing more frustrating than spending $40-70 on a game, some of which get decent reviews, and realizing it completely sucks. Let me return half-@$$ed, crappy games and I'll stop DL'ing them first.
they've been selling SNES games on virtual console at 6ish bucks each, there's your factory
How do you lose what you never had?
Piracy is not only the chance to obtain games for free, also the option to obtain different kind of products, mainly bypassing the "territory limitation" and the chance to obtain rare or hard to find items.
For example, can you play (today) smash brother melee on your US or CE console?.
i think it's greedy of them to bother wasting time on potential profits. they're console is really popular, i agree with the original post - if they want MORE money they should supply us with more Wii!
No, because I would never have bought all of those games.
This is stupid...
This is a great example how you can twist the words or turn the numbers.
They DIDN'T lose anything. You don't lose money ob piracy since they are not stealing money from you. What is happening is that you don't earn money because thy don't buy your product. But of course companies twist the words, as always. Like if there is a special price on a product and the ad says that you save this and that amount. YOU DON'T! But you don't have to spend more. You have never in history saved money on buying things. It can't happen. But back to this "news item". It's very less likely that all the people that make pirated copies of games would have bought the game if they didn't have the option to copy it. Most people copy it or download it because they can, but if they could not they wouldn't rush out and buy it. So these numbers of what companies lose on piracy are GREATLY INFLATED! Probably only 20-30% of the people whom makes pirated copies would buy the real game, movie, or software. Maybe even less. A pirated version DOES NOT equal a lost sold legit copy!
One other thing to consider is rentals, a lot of new rental companies have come along that allow you to basically borrow games for a monthly fee. Comes in handy if a game that you wouldn't consider buying because its probably not all that great, but you might want to try out.
The other problem would be in price, most Wii games are still 49.99 and as far as I know Nintendo doesn't have a greatest hits like section of games that are cheaper. Who wants to pay $50 for another rendition of Mario goes looking for something to unlock something because Bowsers being a douche again.
The last point is what is the game to console attachment rate for the Wii? I have one and two games, the one that came with the system and Manhunt 2. The last time I powered up my Wii was 2-3 months ago when I got Manhunt. Been to busy working and playing Halo3 and COD4 on my 360 recently. I have a little over a dozen 360 games all fully legal and all purchased when fairly new. $600 est in 360 games versus $20 for Manhunt on the Wii which I got it on sale and is the reason I got it. Factor that into your lost sales to piracy Nintendo.
Well, in the iPod Touch world alone there are lots of people who jailbreak and then pirate NES or SNES ROMS for their device. A lot of these people don't know it's piracy, and illegal, but they're told "it's free" by the idiots on YouTube who post how-to videos.
Sure, it's free. So is the money in your wallet, once I club you over the head and take it.
I don't care one way or the other about pirates. Do your thing if you want to. What I care about is telling people that something is "free" when it's actually stolen. People who are new to technology don't need advice that leads them into acts of piracy. I'd have no problem if the hackers and pirates would just fess up and tell people, "This is technically illegal, but here's how to play NES ROMs on your iPod Touch." At least then some people who might not consider breaking the law or stealing from Nintendo would get the heads up and be able to make an informed choice.
Pirate if you want to. I don't care. Just don't mislead others into doing it under the premise that it's "free" or "the company owes you" (as in the case of the January Applications for iPod Touch, which are most certainly not "free" to jailbreakers-- They're stolen.)
OK. Rant over. You may continue downloading your ROMs.
Fucking Nintendo. I can't believe they whine about this shit when they have the balls to make me pay 8 bucks for an original Nintendo game on the VC when I can buy a bag o f cartridges for 5 dollars at a garage sale. Greedy bastards whining till the end, they made plenty of money this year. If anyone has a right to be whining its the independent devs who get hurt from the piracy. Nintendo is starting to sound like Bono or Metallica.
Thank you Alexander, agreed!
I too am tired of companies that are making millions
crying over a "perceived" loss, always saying "We lost
$$$$$" really? So instead of 220 million profit you
only made 200 million profit, so sad............
As others stated, 99% of those who pirate would never
buy in the first place so that can not be considered a
loss and they probably gain more in advertising by having
more of their product exposed. For those who think we are
justifying it well the big companies love you guys for buying
their brain washing bullshit...............
It's more like they lost that much money due to really bad games. When was the last good DS game before Zelda? When? Anyone? Because I can't even remember that long ago. I haven't purchased a DS game since around May 2007. For every 20 games released on DS, maybe 1 is good enough to keep your attention for more than 5 minutes. For that figure to be correct, there would have to be hundreds of thousands of pirates downloading and playing dozens of games each. I seriously doubt that. If a game sucks bad enough, not only will we not buy it, no one will download it. There are at least a dozen animal games that end with "z" ie Petz, Dogz, Catz. I think Nintendo needs an enema. If they want the money, they need to be killing these games that aren't up to quality.