Comments on: Konami (Dance Dance Revolution) Sues Viacom/Harmonix (Rock Band)

By: Riyad Kalla

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:12:28 +0000

Laurence, great followup. I wasn’t aware that Konami had *that* many rhythm titles under it’s belt, especially given the “Band nature” of some of them, it sure does make the case for Konami more firm with the prior-art claim.

Is the idea that they didn’t sue Guitar Hero because GH doesn’t have the complete instrument set *yet* like it will in World Tour but Rock Band did?

Or maybe Viacom has way more money

By: Laurence Hartje

Laurence Hartje — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:19:08 +0000

I hate these lawsuits, but Konami was pioneering the music-rhythm genre well before Harmonix had a product on the market. Drum Mania, Keyboard Mania, BeatMania, Guitar Freaks, ParaParaParadise, and Dance Dance Revolution are all under the “Bemani” series of games and have been in arcades since 1997 (1999 for GF/DM). In fact Guitar Freaks & Drum Mania allowed you to link the cabinets and play together on both, creating a RockBand-esque experience.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they had taken out some patents on the controllers/ideas.

IANAL, but from skimming the patents, it seems that Konami’s patent could qualify as prior art to the Harmonix one, thus invalidating it. (In fact the Harmonix one even refers to Beatmania [the first Bemani game] in the patent). There is no mention of Guitar Freaks in the Harmonix patent.

Now I love both companies (GuitarFreaks only had 3 frets on the controller, but had some crazy difficult note charts), and want MORE music rhythm games, so can’t they all get along?!?!?! *Coming from a person with a quite impressive display of plastic “instruments” — heck I have a Japanese PS2 just for playing Bemani titles… *

By: Riyad Kalla

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:02:28 +0000

Haha, yea I’m pretty much the best graphic artist around

By: manny

manny — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:06:29 +0000

nice pic