Kenichi Sugimoto, a spokesman for Nintendo, said that it had previously warned<br />MariCar about using its characters but “did not receive a good-faith answer.”<br />MariCar said in a statement that it had discussed its services with Nintendo and consulted with legal experts who judged<br />that its business model would not violate Nintendo’s copyright.<br />Nintendo said in a lawsuit filed in a Tokyo court on Friday that a company called MariCar was offering Mario Kart-style rides without its permission.<br />It added that traffic related to the lawsuit had overwhelmed its website<br />and communications systems, which it said resulted in an unspecified number of real-life Mario and Luigi wannabes getting temporarily lost in the streets<br />A legal dispute in Japan is threatening to shut down a business providing go-kart rides on vehicles<br />that look a lot like those from the video game franchise that inspired untold bouts of hand cramping.<br />MariCar offers its customers the ability to whiz through Tokyo’s streets dressed as Mario, Luigi or others from the Mushroom Kingdom.
