Nintendo is cracking down on illegal game sales stateside.

A judge in America has ordered a temporary banning order on unlicensed and unsanctioned Nintendo-branded products in malls and kiosks in the Seattle area.

The pirates are selling unlicensed products with counterfeited seals of approval, the products take the form of joysticks with Nintendo games built into their hardware which are then plugged directly into the TV. The cheeky pirates are also said to have made direct rip-offs of the N64 controller. The scallywags.

It is alleged that these counterfeit products have come into the United States from Chinese pirates, this small distribution network of malls and kiosks in the Seattle area is suspected to be only a small part of a much larger operation.

It is interesting to note that Nintendo releases very few products in China due to such high levels of piracy in the country. In fact, the iQUE -an N64 controller that plugs directly into the TV to play downloaded N64 games was designed by Nintendo specifically with the Chinese market in mind.

Currently the damages being sued for are unspecified, but with defamation, degradation of consumer/manufacturer relations and lost revenue, the early estimates are in the millions.