Some lawsuit news for your enjoyment today. An itsy-bitsy Texas gaming company, Anascape Ltd., successfully sued Nintendo in federal court over patents relating to the Wavebird, GameCube and Wii Classic controllers. (None of the motion-sensing Wii controllers are involved in the suit.) Right now, Nintendo has been ordered to pay Anascape something to the tune of $21 million, a number that may well decrease after the next round of appeals.
The same Texas company sued Microsoft re: its patents, but Microsoft chose instead to settle out of court. Looks like Microsoft’s strategy for dealing with gaming lawsuits is to settle as soon as possible—witness the presence of rumble in the Xbox 360‘s controller from Day One.