Nintendo patents new Wii controller

Spong‘s found a new Nintendo controller patent, and you can read a stupidly detailed description of it here.

It doesn’t mean it’ll come to anything, obviously, but it’s fun though, isn’t it?

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6 comments

ecu
09/07/08, 8:43 pm

Gamecube pad crossed with a Dreamcast (VMU) pad.

Hero of Canton
09/07/08, 10:33 pm

It’s an old patent – essentially the original plan for the classic controller (which they ended up plugging into the remote, rather than slotting the remote into a shell).

Nugent
09/07/08, 10:59 pm

That’s a patent application, not a patent. It’s also not very old, it only goes back to 2005. The “stupidly detailed description?” That’s the actual application, which will become the actual patent if this gets issued.

Hero of Canton
09/07/08, 11:07 pm

Back to 2005 – i.e. before the Wii came out, i.e. before the classic controller design was finalised.

prodygee
09/07/08, 11:30 pm

Heh, would be weird. Plugging the mote into that.

Nugent
10/07/08, 11:50 pm

This isn’t likely to be a patent for the classic controller, because the classic controller is basically the same as any other controller out there, and this isn’t a design patent. Sega already did the VMU slot thing so that can’t be what the patent is for either.

The key thing here is the “imager” or “imaging device.” This looks like a patent for the IR portion of the motion sensing on the Wii.