There is no doubt that China is the largest source of intellectual piracy. One can go to China and buy pirated copies of almost every brand product, ranging from DVD movie to tennis racket. Case in point, a friend of mine who just returned from China gave me a DVD movie as gift. The curious thing is that the American-made movie has not even been released in the States yet. I have no idea how Chinese counterfeiters have managed to get hold of the unreleased movie; they must have employed very impressive corporate spies.
Legitimate Chinese manufacturers are taking a crack at this multibillion-dollar industry as well. But instead of simply making illegal copies of copyrighted products, they decide to produce similar “versions” of the products and give them deceptive branding. One example of this would be Hondai–a Chinese automobile brand. I am not a car expert but my guess is that Hondai must have something to do with Japan’s Honda and South Korea’s Hyundai.
The Chinese are also in the video game console business. They recently released a video game console called Chintendo Vii–a spiritual sibling of the popular Japanese game console Nintendo Wii. As one can see, the Chinese producer has taken great pain to make sure that the name of their console is as close to its Japanese counterpart as possible. Of course, the Vii console is meagerly priced at $50 compared to the Wii’s price tag of $250.
If you are interested in purchasing this product, I can tell you that the Vii is worth every penny (sarcasm) though the buyer will need to take a few anxiety pills after his first play through. The game features dated graphics; game play consists entirely of random shaking of the Chintendo remote. Consequently, the Vii sometimes has a mind of its own.
The Chintendo Vii comes with more than a dozen games. The games are similar to the ones that come with the Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately, the resemblance is in name only. There is a huge gap in quality. My advice to you when playing the Vii is to put a shield in front of your TV, since you may experience an urge to throw the Vii remote at the TV in frustration.
