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[Bluemercury]

You hear that MS? You might as well not even release a new console!

ITs only natural a person with a Fable avatar to protect the MS's next gen machine....

 

[nightez]

Why are all these patents so vague its impossible to tell what the thing is?
What use is it then.

 

[Enigma]

Why are all these patents so vague its impossible to tell what the thing is?
What use is it then.

Did you actually read it? I was just skimming it and was beginning to wonder if someone actually had the patience to read the entire thing, if they could figure out what the hell they were talking about. You'd think with some many detailed steps, if shouldn't be that hard... of course, I only lasted 10 minutes before glazing over. Reading for another day.

Edit: What am I paying Insider for? They don't post any Nintendo articles... they don't even post very many movies/impressions of DS games. Get off your duff, boys, and read it! Based on the goofy possibilities list that accompanied their article, I don't think they did more than look at the picture.

 

[Speevy]

There's really no point in guessing. There are a million ways a company can use any one bit of technology, and another million ways they can package it.

 

[JJConrad]

If you read items 0005 - 0009 (especially 0009) in Description - BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION, you get an idea of the purpose of this patent. 0014 and 0017 give the clearest description of how they do it.

Its for an in-game camera system, designed to track multiple players on screen at once. Not a powerglove, not a VR Suit (Damn you IGN, how the hell do you guys stay in business?). The more I read, the more it sounds like the camera work in the GC Custom Robo game.

 

[Diffense]

I haven't read any of the patent (just skimmed the thread and the ign article) but I agree that it's probably some kind of algorithm rather than a hardware device. The only thing I can gather from the diagram is that all of the characters are more centrally located after the transformation. It's seems that instead of splitting the screen in certain multiplayer games the camera will just orient itself to show all the characters on the screen.

Revolutionary?

 

[ImNotLikeThem]

i know the IGNCube board where i first saw this thought it was about Four Swords, considering the fact that the game literally IS a 2d game mapped to a 3d field. That, and the way it scales with 4 people on the screen, closer and farther apart from each other.

 

[Tellaerin]

If you read items 0005 - 0009 (especially 0009) in Description - BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION, you get an idea of the purpose of this patent. 0014 and 0017 give the clearest description of how they do it.

Its for an in-game camera system, designed to track multiple players on screen at once. Not a powerglove, not a VR Suit (Damn you IGN, how the hell do you guys stay in business?). The more I read, the more it sounds like the camera work in the GC Custom Robo game.

The fact that it's possible to take out patents on techniques like this in the first place is absurd. It's like a cameraman trying to patent the various ways he can shoot a given scene to best focus on the action as 'inventions'. U.S. patent law needs a serious overhaul.

 

[nightez]

The fact that it's possible to take out patents on techniques like this in the first place is absurd. It's like a cameraman trying to patent the various ways he can shoot a given scene to best focus on the action as 'inventions'. U.S. patent law needs a serious overhaul.

I think you can patent anything. Nintendo has a patent on emulation of video games.

 

[Enigma]

The fact that it's possible to take out patents on techniques like this in the first place is absurd. It's like a cameraman trying to patent the various ways he can shoot a given scene to best focus on the action as 'inventions'. U.S. patent law needs a serious overhaul.

And it's good to patent thesee things so if some evil, bloodless corportation decides to start patenting and enforcing everything the gaming world is doing/been doing, they don't bring the entire industry to it's knees with that nonsense.

 

[pestul]

What is interesting is that people often forget that Sony has said that technology similar to eyetoy is going to be a big part of PS3 out of the box.

So if Nintendo is trying to do something different, it's not like Sony isn't either. Microsoft, well, they are content with simply better graphics, lack of hard-drive etc... but of course, they'll offer 3 versions of their console.

What's also interesting, is that all rumors point to MS being first out of the gates, and that Nintendo and Sony will be releasing around the same time as one another.

So - if Nintendo utilizes some new revolutionary control/visual setup, and Sony tries the same thing (though possibly very different from what Nintendo does), and MS only provides a more powerful 'conventional' system - MS is going to be left out in the cold I think.

With Sony and Nintendo likely to offer some new form of machine, releasing at the same time, and after MS - Sony and Nintendo are both going to make MS look inferior. Now - that said - games rule - and they are what determines what people buy.

And you don't think MS next console will have very high-speed ports where any of these gimicky features can be added later? Or even at launch?

 

[Gaia Theory]

Sometimes the license to technologies aren't for sale (luckily for Sony and MS, Immersion was willing to sell them one). Also - any feature not included in the box, NEVER has the same market penetration as features included w/ the box. Sony learned this with the add on HD.