Nintendo goes trademark crazy, Picross 3D and others heading west?

by Chris Greenhough { Nov 12th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Nintendo recently filed a veritable smorgasboard of DS-related trademarks in Japan. How many is a smorgasboard? In this case, it's forty. All but three of the terms are preceded by either "DS" or "DSi," and the mind can only boggle at the potential of some of these: DSiMovie, DSiMusic, DSiMail, DSArcade, DSBook, DSCreator, DSLive, and DSPhone were among the names that excited us the most. A full list is after the break.

Siliconera dug all of these up from the Japanese trademark database, along with a couple of other interesting tidbits, including potential English names for Tomodachi Connection (in which players get to be friends with Mii versions of Miyamoto, Reggie, and Iwata!) and Ritai Picross (Picross 3D), which we definitely wouldn't rule out for a western release.

Obviously, none of these might mean a single damn thing. Companies indulge in trademarking all the time, simply to protect future ideas. Time, as always, will tell.

Gallery: Picross 3D

Filed on September 30th:

DSiChannel
DSiStation
DSiNews
DSiMovie
DSiMusic

Filed on October 1st:

DSiMail
DSiMode
DSiVision
DSiTsuushin (DSiCommunication)
DSArcade
DSBook
DSCreator
DSClub
DSCommunity
DSCooking
DSDiary
DSeye
DSFamily
DSFriend
DSLife
DSLive
DSLibrary
DSmobile
DSMap
DSNavi
DSNet
DSPhone
DSPlus
DSPoint
DSSchool
DSSpeak
DSShop
DSShopping
DSTrainer
DSTime
DSWalk
DSZone
MyDS
CatchDS
ShotDS

Tags: 3d-picross, dsi, nintendo-dsi, picross, trademark

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lanceh @ Nov 12th 2008 6:59PM

What? DSLife!?

Ah, if only you'd patented your weekly feature, you'd be swimming in money and getting their hardware banned right about now. :P

NetOperator Wibby @ Nov 12th 2008 7:08PM

Holy crap that's a lot. I think I might have to get a briefcase just for these.

chibi_wings @ Nov 12th 2008 8:05PM

i really could care less about Tomadachi Connection. Nintendo of America should localize some interesting games, say like Soma Bringer, and where is my professor layton. Get layton done first before you start thinking about the other newer games. I doubt the core gamers would really care about a game like Tomadachi Connection and causal gamers won't know who these three are, so really I don't understand why it's even up for localization *rolls eyes* But then again Nintendo of America tends to make dumb decisions. But maybe I'm wrong, Tomadachi Connection may turn out to be a awesome game, but for some reason, my gut instinct isn't feeling that it will.

hijinx @ Nov 12th 2008 9:58PM

@chibi_wings

Professor Layton isn't developed by Nintendo, and afaik, the J version isn't finished.

Similar story with Soma Bringer, (except the J version is done) but NoA hadn't heard of it until Wired brought it up in an interview.

chibi_wings @ Nov 13th 2008 3:10PM

umm. the second layton game has been out in japan for almost a year, so I don't see how you can say it isn't complete. Yes the third installment isn't out yet, but NA hasn't even gotten the second. I assume Nintendo is publishing all three layton games here because it published the first installment, and Nintendo of Japan published/is publishing all three. So yes, Nintendo doesn't own layton (level 5 does), but Nintendo is the official publisher of the games; unless of course, Nintendo of America feels like handing that responsibility out to another publisher, but since they haven't done so, I assume they are still holding onto the right to publish it here. And hence I wish they would get cracking on localizing layton instead of thinking about localizing other games. Of course I can't persuade Nintendo of America to do something, but I will get annoyed every time I hear news that is not layton related.

oh and Soma Bringer is owned by Nintendo, since they recently bought out Monolith soft and put them to work on soma bringer. I don't read Wired and I've heard about it, so i really don't see your point >___>