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Nintendo Patents Online Console Gaming
MagicDude writes "Nintendo has patented key console online gaming features. Specifically, it has received patents on things such as player league tables, voice communications and online gaming host services. While the article doesn't address how Nintendo will use these patents, it makes you wonder if this is the first step for Nintendo to become a major player in the online gaming market."
Is this why Microsoft wants to buy Nintendo, I wonder?
League tables: Since Quake 1 (various) Barrysworld
Voice communication: Counter strike (et al)
Online game host services: GameSpy, Barrysworld
I am suprised they haven't patented online console credit card authorization or advertising, or just the Internet.
What kind of low life scum work at the USPO? (unless this ain't a US patent, I mean, it is Nintendo...) What kind of people have never played an online game, and couldn't see this for what it was?
'Home Game Video Systems' can mean anything from you mobile phone to your fridge is you are lucky enough to have a posh one.
The best thing we can do is uphold all these daft patents until the world demises into primordial soup again, then find the random protein like structures who think patent system abuse is a good idea, and throw them away from the lightening strike area, so they evolve into fish, and have little influence in modern day computing.
Of course, this all lends weight to the theory of Evolution...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
My hope is that if enough ridiculous patents are issued (I'm reminded of the guy that patented "swinging on a porch swing sideways" and "swinging on a porch swing sideways while making 'tarzan' sounds") they may revamp how the patent process works.
Oh yeah I also submitted a patent for spinning in an office chair, don't be jealous...
I boycott signatures
I heard a rumor awhile back about Microsoft purchasing Nintendo, does anyone have any links relating to this?
Also, their patent is for "league gaming" et al., and it may be possible to apply that methodology to online poker rooms. Is it possible that the patents will cover certain types of online gambling as well as actual games?
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artlu.net
Nintendo were always a mean, litigious, predatory outfit, some of whose business practices would make Microsoft blush. They had a near-monopoly in the NES days and they used every trick in the book to maintain it as long as they possibly could.
They focused on world domination, and screwed over everyone and everything in their path. The only reason they're not still what they were is that they screwed over Sony on the SNES CD project and Sony screwed them right back.
Do not expect Nintendo to play nice with a patent like this one. They'll sue everything in sight to ensure online dominance for their next console.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The patent cited there is for a console with a harddrive, but voice services for games have been around much longer than 1999. I remember playing subspace in 97 with the ability to record and send short clips to other players, and using netmeeting to chat with friends. These days when consoles literally are just desktops, "on a console" is no more innovative than "on the internet".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No, of course he didn't, but all of those patented ideas were widely in use on computers for several years by that point. The argument that a console is somehow different enough to warrant the ability to patent these things is ridiculous. A console is a computer. Just because you put it in a different box and hook it up to your TV doesn't change that.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Nintendo began as a company making playing card decks, and protecting its brand ferociously. When it went into electronics, making cheap knockoffs was rampant throughout Asia. Their protectionist strategy backfired in getting a library of games to compete with Sony and MS, but Nintendo always has and will continue to feircely protect its intellectual properties.
Gamesindustry.biz has a long write up.
This patent was about the 64DD add-on device..
US patent 6,769,989, which was granted on the 3rd of August, refers to a console add-on device which would modify an existing system to include "additional communication and storage capability via a modem and hard disk drive."
blah blah blah
However, despite only being granted this month, the original patent was actually filed back in 1999, and the picture attached to the patent clearly displays a 64DD unit attached to an N64. The ill-fated peripheral offered many of the functions described by the patent, but was unpopular with consumers and was rapidly discontinued by Nintendo.
blah blah blah
This isn't to say that some of that functionality won't make it into Revolution, although in general Nintendo has aimed for pure game devices rather than trying to compete with Sony's vision for building a home media empire based on the PlayStation brand.
Sure they got the patent, it doesn't fit with their plans. And since the patent is for a CONSOLE ADD ON DEVICE, it doesn't apply to XBox or PCs, which have hard drives and ethernet integrated. Like the article said, it really doesn't fit with Nintendo's plans whatsoever.
Did you know Konami has more video game patents than anyone else? Makes sense, with all their specialty arcade hardware. Followed by Sega, then Ninteno.. MSFT is wayyyyy down near the bottom of the list, lower than folks like Tiger Electronics (game.com roxorz!) Just something interesting I stumbled over while googling for that link. Pretty much irrelevant and offtopic, though.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Dammit people, stop thinking like that. I hear it all the time with regards to Microsoft, IBM, Nintendo, pretty much any huge company that has a patent portfolio.
Yes, you are right they have never used them aggressively, it has always been a "defense" war-chest.
Have you ever heard of an "end game"?
Look at SCO, they never used their supposed ownership of Unix aggressively either right? Ooops, they never did until they became completely irrelevant and and felt the need to do something, ANYTHING to resurrect their failed business.
So what happens when (not if) Nintendo, IBM, Microsoft, et al, being to lose significant marketshare? When (either due to competition, crappy economy, whatever) these companies begin the inevitable fall from grace that every company in history eventually has done? When the stockholders demand profit and actions to be taken to get that profit? It will be fiscially irresponsible (and almost criminal) for the management NOT to use their patent portfolio aggressively to regain profit. If they won't the stockholders will oust them and bring in attack dogs who will.
It is almost inevitable that these patents WILL be used aggressively. It is just a matter of time. Consider it corporate insurance that you will never lose your position in the computer industry.
Or look at it another way, consider it insurance that Microsoft and IBM will never be made irrelevent by Open Source, as soon as it gets too popular, it will be litigated away. If the PS2 and X-Box take away too much of Nintendo's market, they will be ligitated into effectively paying Nintendo (licensing fees) for the market-share they took.
Finkployd
"So tell me, who would you rather hold the patent on these things, Microsoft or Nintendo?"
Honestly? MS. Or MS and Sony. Nintendo has a vested interested in keeping software piracy controlled to the point that they didn't want any games online. Sure, the PR was that "no one wanted online gaming", but come on. Everyone wanted online gaming. The truth is Nintendo wanted to take every possible easy avenue away from pirates (what better way to get ISOs on an Xbox than by the network).
Nintendo doesn't "get it". They haven't gotten it in 20 years. Their controls drive away users and piss off players who'd like to play online.
...because it wasn't designed to.
Lemme get this strait. You're saying this technology is patentable because it is being applied to purposely "crippled" hardware when it has existed for years on normal hardware?
ie: console = a computer purposely crippled into only doing *some* of the normal functions of a computer.
So uh, the selection mask for "crippled system" is patentable? Seems pretty silly to me. Maybe Microsoft can just rename their console and call it a "GamePC" and sidestep the whole patent?