Blizzard's won its fair share of disputes over a number of domains with Warcraft in the name, as did Riot Games with League of Legends, and Apple with the iPhone, but it seems that Nintendo just isn't as lucky. The company was not as successful in a recent dispute with the current holder of WiiU.com.
Back in February, Nintendo had filed a complaint with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), but the complaint was given a "denied" decision yesterday.
Ironically, Nintendo has the option of buying the domain outright, as the site was set to go to auction. Instead, Nintendo chose to file its dispute with WIPO, and the site's owners removed the site from auction.
According to a whois search, the domain belongs to Domain Privacy Service, a non descript business that apparently operates out of Burlington, Massachusetts.
Traditionally, it seems like game companies, developers, and manufacturers have been taking questionable domain holders to task for thier seemingly blatant cybersquatting, so why didn't Nintendo win this one? What makes this case different?
Well, because it seems like it might not actually be cyberquatting. According to the whois search, the domain was created all the way back in 2004, years before Nintendo announced the Wii U, even two years before the precursor, the Wii, was even released. Even if someone had some sort of inside knowledge, Nintendo's Wii wasn't even known as such until 2006, having been known by the codename "Revolution" internally. This is just a theory however, the actual reasoning behind the WIPO's decision wasn't explained.
Visiting the site now, visitors are greeted with the usual array of spam and garbage links for online universities and fictional consoles like the Wii 2. Nothing malicious, but also nothing really related to the console itself. With the company's dispute denied, Nintendo's only option now will be to write out a check with a few zero's on it if they still want control of the web site.
Nintendo ran into similar issues with Wii.com, having to pay another domain holder an unknown sum for control of that site.