🚀 go-pugleaf

[In article <90031201022042@masnet.uucp>,
     david.schreiber@canremote.uucp (DAVID SCHREIBER) writes ... ]

> It is IMPOSSIBLE for Nintendo to be sing "monopolistic" practices
> against Atari. Check your dictionary.

Oh, really? It says:

mo*nop*o*ly 1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a given
market, or control that makes possible the fixing of prices and the
virtual elimination of free competition.

According to the Associated Press, Rep. Dennis Eckart of Ohio, chairman of
the House small business subcommittee on antitrust, asked the U.S. Justice
Department's antitrust division last December to investigate Nintendo.

Nintendo controls 80 percent or more of the videogames market. That in
itself is not monopolistic, but:

* He accused Nintendo of intimidating retailers to keep competitors off
toy store shelves.

* He said Nintendo has used exclusive software arrangements and physical
computer-chip barriers to control the market. Nintendo installs a
"lock-out chip" in each cartridge, and only licensed game cartridges
including that chip can be used on Nintendo players.

*  He said Nintendo had created artificial shortages of some games sold by
licensed software producers.

* He said the result of Nintendo's marketing practices is that only games
licensed or sold by Nintendo can be played on the Nintendo players,
blocking independent software publishers and inflating the costs of games
to consumers by an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent.  

I don't think anyone is close to filing any criminal charges, but similar
allegations are contained in the Atari Games (Tengen) civil suit. (Atari
Games is not affiliated with Atari Corp.)

-- 
   Steve Yelvington at the lake in Minnesota
   UUCP path: ... umn-cs.cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve