A San Francisco Federal District Court decision has forced Connectix Corp to suspend shipping its Virtual Game Station (CVGS), an emulator that allows games written for Sony Corp’s PlayStation to run on Apple Macintosh hardware. The court order does not apply to units already shipped, meaning product will still be on the shelves until supplies run out. Connectix says it will continue to support people who have already bought CVGS, and that development on both the Mac and Windows platforms will go ahead as planned.
This is just the first stage of a lengthy process of discovery of facts and finding of law, said president Roy McDonald. He insisted that he is confident Connectix will be able to resume shipments after overturning this decision on appeal. We do not believe that we have violated any intellectual property rights, he said. Sony Corp contends that the interface between games and hardware – whether implemented as a Sony PlayStation or as a third-party software emulator – is itself Sony’s intellectual property, and that Connectix is effectively committing piracy.
