KONAMI vs Harmonix
Posted in KONAMI in the US have filed a patent lawsuit against Harmonix (and thus also MTV and Viacom) in the federal court in Tyler, Texas.
They started the lawsuit because they think that Rock Band (Harmonix) violates KONAMI patents which relate to “simulated musical instruments, a music-game system and a musical-rhythm matching game”.
Well, the lawsuit has been around for a while but I wanted to find out more information about KONAMI vs. Harmonix.
Why did not KONAMI sue Harmonix for Guitar Hero? Even though that Harmonix itself claimed that the game is based on GFDM? (as well the idea of FreQuence/Amplitude came from BEMANI games). Well, I don’t know why didn’t this happen. But with Guitar Hero III being released we could find out that Activision and KONAMI have some kind of agreement on several ““simulated musical instruments, a music-game system and a musical-rhythm matching game” patents. In my eyes this can mean that Activision pays KONAMI for the use of these patents in their games. Also Activision bought Devecka patents “Methods and apparatus for providing an interactive musical game” so it seems that Activision plans something bigger in the future with music games.
Anyway it seems that KONAMI is not looking for competition nor killing the game(s) itself but for settlement. (I would personally say that cash settlement is not the only thing KONAMI wants, but after finding out about Activision using KONAMI’s patents….). Harmonix in the time being fully localized Rock Band (with Japanese songs as well) for Japan. This game might become a rival to GFDM….What do you think? I seriously find this outrageous.
