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Nintendo Patents Insanity

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke dept.

theodp writes "Nintendo scored a patent Tuesday for a Sanity system for video game, which covers causing a game character to hallucinate - e.g., see bleeding walls and hear maniacal laughter - as its sanity decreases in response to encountering a creature or gruesome situation."

1 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. Instructions for the Slash-Horde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I can understand that this story must be presenting a bit of a dilemma for the slash-horde. On the one hand, you've got patents (and indeed, a fairly ridiculous example), which, as everybody knows, are A BAD THING and DISCOURAGE INNOVATION. On the other hand, you've got Nintendo, who are A GOOD THING and THE ONLY INNOVATORS LEFT and THE ONLY OPTION FOR REAL GAMERS(TM). Faced with a problem like this, what is a good little hordling to do? Think for themselves? Clearly unacceptable. To save you the effort, I've prepared a few pre-fab arguments to deploy at your convenience.

    1) Nintendo need patents because they are the only innovators. After all, how can patents discourage innovation if nobody else was going to innovtate anyway?

    2) Nintendo can be trusted to hold patents, because they don't care about money. After all, you can trust a company not to abuse its intellectual property when its sole purpose is to provide near-orgasmic levels of pleasure to REAL GAMERS (TM). Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't make a penny from his work... he invests it all into producting the absolute best gaming experience possible and would never stoop to be associated with a company that produces shovelware remakes on tired franches, like Mario 64 DS, Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart Double Dash, erm... oh... wait

    3) Only Nintendo can be trusted to look after gaming intellectual propery properly. Just think, if not for Nintendo's careful stewardship of the Mario franchise, we might have seen... oooh... a version of Mario with a *blue* hat! Shocking!

    4) Nintendo have a brilliant record of being absolutely lovely and fluffy and not going after anybody at all for infringement ever. Stories about Nintendo stomping on Commodore 64 platformers and suing nice-ladies-with-no-clothes-on for mentioning Metroid in their blogs (even if this was through incompetence rather than malice) are clearly wicked fabrications.

    5) NINTENDO ARE THE ONLY INNOVATORS AND REAL GAMERS (TM) MUST ONLY LIKE NINTENDO GAMES!!!!!!