New Patent Details Virtual Console Interface?

New Patent Details Virtual Console Interface?
by Shawn White & Terrell Chambers (11/26/05)

Revolution Report recently came across a patent filed by Nintendo which may possibly be related to the Virtual Console function of the company's next-generation console, code-named Revolution.

The patent in question is rather long-winded, but a summary of the key points and how they could relate to Virtual Console have been provided below (Note: "Figures" relate to respective images presented towards bottom):

• The patent refers to a series of emulator programs, meaning that should this patent refer to Virtual Console, the "first game machine" (which we assume refers to Revolution) has no dedicated hardware for Virtual Console titles. (Figure 4)
  
• According to the images and descriptions provided within the patent, when deciding to play and/or download a title, the player will select the game by platform or franchise. Also, for games existing without a definite franchise, the patent indicates an "other" tab to select from that may accommodate those particular titles. (Figure 9)
  
• When choosing a game, the player will apparently click once to bring up a screen displaying an outline of the game which uses animations, still pictures, a sentence description and/or sounds, and then click again to confirm the selection. (Figure 18)
  
• Particular downloaded games will prompt the player to choose a number of displayed characters before engaging in gameplay, perhaps even characters that might not be normally attributed to that particular game. This notion coincides with what Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said back in June, stating that Nintendo is "doing several experiments, including working with the original Super Mario Bros.," and that "the game itself and the gameplay shall be identical, but the look will be different; it's possible that with Revolution, we may be able to see the old games with new looks." (Figure 22)
  
• According to the patent, this technology will allow for older game programs to be supplied to the player at a low cost without the added burden of program-implanting costs for the game program maker. However, the patent in question does not further specify the exact meaning of "low cost."
  
• For the NES and SNES consoles, those "extremely low in capability," the Revolution's CPU has the capacity to handle the processing of the downloaded game without the involvement of the GPU.
  
• No unnecessary re-coding is required to get downloadable games to work with this technology, according to the patent.

The full patent can be found here.

Please keep in mind that while there is a possibility that this may be a patent for the Virtual Console service in Nintendo's next-generation console, it can not be determined if this type of technology will be implemented in the service or if Nintendo will opt to go in a different direction.

Revolution Report will have more on Nintendo's Virtual Console service as it becomes available.

Patent Images:

Source: Revolution Report


An interesting discovery, no less. Thoughts?

[ShadowMarth]

The fact that several things are mispelled disturbs me.

Japanese to English translations aren't always the best. That, or maybe NOJ's patent filers are getting lazy.

"Welcome, to the woooorrrld of tomorrow!"

[ShadowMarth]

Hmm, I must wonder... If it will organize it by series, can you pay to download an entire series? $20 for all of mario? That would kick so much ass.

Also, the programs appear to look a bit like the organization of a iPod... More apple design, more good news.

Originally Posted by ShadowMarth

Hmm, I must wonder... If it will organize it by series, can you pay to download an entire series? $20 for all of mario? That would kick so much ass.

Indeed, it would. $25 sounds reasonable for like... a jillion Mario games. Hell, I'd even pay $50. Nintendo's cookin' up some gamer lovin' for me.

[ShadowMarth]

Then again, following the Apple theory here... They might charge 15-20 (considering mario has so many games) for the full NES series, or possibly NES-SNES. Sell by systems. Who knows.