Current Events > Man arrested for selling modified Super NES Classics with extra games

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nintendos Classic Mini Super Famicom, the Japanese-spec version of the Super NES Classic Edition, a self-contained retro system that has 21 old-school games stored inside, which should be enough to keep anyone with an appreciation of the hobbys history, or just fun, straightforward gameplay, entertained.

But 39-year-old Tomoyuki Miyamoto, a resident of Kashima in Ibaraki Prefecture, felt the Mini Super Famicom could use a bit of a tune-up. Since its got the processing power to run any Super Famicom/Super NES game, Miyamoto decided to add in the ROMs for a few more.

Had he stopped there and simply enjoyed his upgraded system in the comfort of his own home, he probably wouldnt have gotten in trouble. Unfortunately, Miyamotos next move was to offer his upgraded Mini Super Famicom for sale through an online auction site. Between April and May, he sold three systems, with his total income from them coming to 61,500 yen, a pretty nice profit margin on the 24,000 yen it would have cost him to but the systems new, since they retail for 8,000 yen in Japan.

But Miyamotos entrepreneurial spirit didnt impress law enforcement, and he was arrested on Nov 19 by officers attached to the Yasugi Precinct in Shimane Prefecture, way on the other side of the country (where ostensibly one of Miyamotos customers was located). He now faces charges stemming from violations of Japans trademark and copyright laws. Miyamoto has admitted to selling the systems, which he says he modified himself, implying that no one else was involved in his money-making scheme.

Given that his customers were willing to pay more than double the cost of a regular Mini Super Famicom, you might be imagining that Miyamoto stuffed them full of the entire catalog for the 16-bit system. Actually, though, he added a mere five games to the systems, with their copyrights split between four publishers. And though there are exactly five different games in the pre-bundled lineups for the Japanese and overseas versions of the retro console, Miyamoto wasnt trying to create some best-of-both-worlds hybrid by combining their two libraries. One of the games he added is reported to be plain-old Super Mario Bros, which wasnt even released in a stand-alone version for the Super Famicom/Super NES, so its unclear if Miyamoto slapped the 8-bit NES game into the 16-bit retro box or simply cut out the Super Mario Bros. portion that was one-fourth of the 16-bit Super Mario All-Stars remake bundle and tossed away the rest.

Either way, despite the relatively minor scale of the operation and modest economic gains it brought Miyamoto, it was still enough to get arrested, serving as another example of how the Japanese justice system doesnt give video game bootleggers much leeway, even if they have the same last name as Marios creator.

Full Article: https://japantoday.com/category/crime/man-arrested-for-selling-modified-super-nes-classics-with-extra-games


Man random nerds are better at releasing hardware than Nintendo...
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his name's Miyamoto, he should have the right
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And his name is Miyamoto, too.
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Is t threat shigerus relative?

RIP Man arrested
Died at the jail sentence shot up to 97 days
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Ugh. I hate companies.

I want to play Donkey Kong Country 2. It wasn't released in the SNES classic. Why doesn't Nintendo want my money?