Tag Archives: patent

An interesting patent has turned up suggesting Sony may be investigating some sort of PS Move support system for portable consoles.

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Let’s play What Might Have Been, with this patent for a lost WiiMote and Balance Board combo motorcycle and jet ski games.

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Dutch police have reportedly seized tens of thousands of PlayStation 3 consoles from warehouses as part of Sony and LG’s ongoing patent dispute.

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According to a patent listing for Kinect, not only does the motion controller recognize the body, face, and voice, but American Sign Language as well.

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Sony’s filed patents that would allow for two people to play games in 3D without using split-screen mode.

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Microsoft’s patent filing with the US Patent and Trademark office for a more efficient Xbox Live Marketplace downloadable purchase experience has been approved.

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Sony has filed a patent for a universal game controller with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

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Sony’s gone ahead and patented a lunatic amount of add-ons for its upcoming motion controller. Kotaku’s got a decent précis.

Basically, if you can imagine something that you can stick on the end of a stick, Sony’s probably just patented it. The patent itself is for an “Expandable Control Device Via Hardware Attachment”.

It’s all bollocks, obviously. The motion controller itself is planned for a spring release.

Siliconera‘s happened upon a new-ish (it was filed back in April) Sony patent that commandeers the rights to an interactive television interface not unlike that of Mystery Science Theater 3000. So basically, your avatar appears on-screen during a movie or TV show, leading to all sorts of wacky hijinks.

“For example, avatars displayed to a user, in response to user gestures in the real world, e.g. in response to manipulation of a game controller or other such expedient, may toss tomatoes that stick to the actor’s face or bounce off the actor’s face and roll along a table that appears in the movie or television show,” reads the patent.

Tomato-throwing? Yeesh – how juvenile. Count us in!

Also in the cards is a minigame that involves shooting spiders off actors faces, as well as ad-sponsored activities like, er, tossing Coca Cola cans at actors instead of tomatoes.

If anyone asks about the bruises, Keanu Reeves, you fell down the stairs. Got it? Yeah, that’s what we thought.

More through the link.

Siliconera‘s posted up images of a new PS3 controller patent. It’s another stick.

This one looks like a Pez dispenser with buttons. No one seems to have any idea what it’s for. Controlling stuff, probably.

Take a look.

Not content with imaginearing a blow-up horse-based Wii controller earlier in the month, Nintendo’s wacky funsters have now patented a pathetic football thing for the motion-based console.

You put the Wiimote inside it, then run around your living room pretending you are John Madden. About 190 years ago.

Best bit? You can “throw” it. Hey, Nintendo? It’s time to do the honourable thing.

Pics and more on Siliconera.

This is a strange one, but it appears Microsoft has patented the ability to drop-in and out of co-op games – think Gears of War.

Patent #7,559,834 was invented by a James York back in 2002 but it was assigned to Microsoft on July 14th 2009.

It reads:

Dynamic join/exit of players during play of console-based video game

Abstract

A squad-based shooter video game allows players to dynamically join and leave the game, while that game is in progress, without the players having to save and restart the game. When a new player joins an in-progress game, a new squad member is allocated to the new player and the screen is split to present a viewing panel for the new player that depicts scenes from the perspective of the new squad member. When an existing player leaves the game, the screen is unsplit to remove the viewing panel for the exiting player and that player’s squad member becomes part of the squad being controlled by the remaining player(s).

However, if you think that now no other company can use this technique, the patent does strictly say that it is only for squad-based shooters.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Sony’s patented what looks to be new motion tech that would allow gamers to use everyday objects in play, such as “coffee mugs, drinking glasses, books, bottles, etc.”

There’s tons of detail and diagrams on Siliconera. Thanks, Kotaku.

Siliconera reports that SCEE has filed a patent for a PSP-operated remote control car.

Seems that the car’s camera sends images back to your PSP in order to navigate obstacles and film progress.

Specifically, the patent says: “A user may control the car 200 (the figure number) so as to spy on their friends… then upload the stored video images to a website.”

Just think of the dodgy things you could do with such a thing. The mind boggles.

Nintendo has filed a patent application in the US that could see you being assisted through tougher parts of levels by characters in the game.

Shigeru Miyamoto is behind the idea and its main purpose will be to save us all time bothering to become any good at a game, and simply show us where the secret door is instead of you know, actually bothering to work it out for ourselves.

“In some of these games, a volume of the story or the scenario is too large, and therefore a lot of time is needed for clearing the game,” reads the patent application.

“Further, in some cases, various puzzles are set in the scenario… However, there is a problem that these puzzles and the like are too difficult, and therefore the game may be stuck halfway, and the game may not be cleared to the end.”

“As means for solving the problem, disclosed is a game control method for lowering the difficulty level of a game by presenting, while the game is being played, a hint for allowing the game to be continued.”

By Mike Bowden