Creating a Katamari Sequel

Seeing What Sticks is an article posted as a 'Postcard from GDCE' over at Gamasutra. In the piece they do a run down on the keynote Katamari creator Keita delivered late in the show. The topic? The approach he took to create a sequel to the quirky and successful original title. From the article: "Speaking through a be-suited translator, Keita alternates between being gleefully provocative and self-effacing. The sense of humor all too apparent in Katamari is equally noticeable here, with even the translator stopping to laugh before telling the audience what Keita actually says. Like, for example, thinking he was offered the keynote by mistake."

Comments

Software Patents

[ctid]

One thing that the summary omitted was Takehashi's comment about patents. During the demo of two-player mode, he pointed out that the miniature hands which appeared at the bottom of the screen would not appear in the USA version because of a problem with a software patent. He said that we really need to sit down and sort this problem out.

By the way, my claim to fame is that I was the person who asked him why he didn't play games any more.

Re:Software Patents

[ctid]

My claim to fame is I patented showing miniature hands on the screen.
Bullshit.

Anyone played any driving game on an 8bit platform?

Hands that show your movements on the steering wheel are there, so surely prior art(even if it isn't a button controller, they even changed gears).

Presumably you're not claiming that he did not say this? If you are claiming that, you certainly were not there. If you mean that he did say that and he was mistaken, then that is possible, but it seems more likely to me that you are mistaken.

Just to be clear about this, when he said it it looked like there were two sets of two hands on the screen and they moved forwards and backwards in response (presumably) to what he was doing with the controller. It definitely wasn't hands on a steering wheel and, as far as I could make out, it wasn't two hands and two controllers (which is what is shown in the gamasutra article which is linked in the story). I might be mistaken about that the two "pushing" hands, but I'm pretty sure that I am not.