Nintendo’s legal woes continue as a judge in Texas has ruled that the same lawsuit which will force Nintendo to pay $21 million to Anascape over patent infringements also means that the company will have to stop selling its Wii Classic, Gamecube, and WaveBird controllers. The judge also rejected Nintendo’s motion for a new trial, effectively sealing the company’s fate and forcing it to pony up the dough awarded to Anascape.

Nintendo is expected to appeal the ban in the US Court of Appeals, and will offer to post a bond or pay royalties into an escrow account in order to prevent the cessation of Classic controller sales. The company stopped manufacturing a selling the Gamecube and WaveBird controllers with the death of that system, so they are only really concerned with resuming sales on the Classic controller. While the appeal is processed, Nintendo is free to continue selling the controller as though the lawsuit never happened.

The ban is expected from the judge later today, with Nintendo planning an appeal effective immediately. Therefore, unless you try to buy a Classic controller in the one nanosecond between the two filings, you likely won’t even notice anything ever happened. However, if for some reason the Court of Appeals doesn’t accept the motion, the Classic controller is about to become exceptionally rare.

- Via GamesIndustry.biz