Nintendo's legal team to investigate possible copyright infringement

Videogaming giant Nintendo has instructed its legal team to look at whether a move to emulate its older consoles on a mobile phone will infringe its copyright.

A blog post by Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia shows a video of its N900 smartphone containing buttons that, when pressed, appear to open emulators for, among others, Nintendo's Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES and SNES.

The video goes on to show Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros 3 playing on the mobile phone.

But Nintendo was unaware of Nokia's apparant move and senior UK PR manager Robert Saunders said: "We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team wille xamine this to determine if any infringement has taken place."

Nintendo continues to make money from its back catalogue via services such as the Wii's download service, the Virtual Console.

The official Nokia video does state that "some emulators require separate ROM images to play games". It adds: "Most publishers allow individual title usage provided that the user is in possession of the original title." It advises people check with the title's provider.

The N900 phone is set to go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone for the attention of gamers. It has a touchscreen, slide-out keyboard, five megapixel camera and GPS capabilities.

Nokia was unavailable for comment.