The motion sensing patent may have more history than we thought
No doubt you read about the newly-discovered Nintendo patent that describes a handheld gaming device with accelerometers in it to read motions. Ben Richardson from Games Radar got excited enough about the idea to take some silly pictures of hypothetical play sessions with such an item! Maybe 'excited' isn't the right word.
It certainly makes sense for Nintendo to explore the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii for future gaming devices, including handhelds. But is this patent proof that they are?
Motion sensing in handheld games is not a new idea. Homebrew developers have been readingmotioninput for a while now, thanks to custom peripherals. And Nintendo has had their own experience with tilt control, in both WarioWare Twisted and Kirby Tilt & Tumble. But individual game cartridges with built-in motion-sensing tech and homebrew developments don't compare to a system designed from the ground up with motion control in mind. Certainly if Nintendo released such a system, it would change handheld gaming forever, right? Maybe not.
As we were reminded by NeoGAF moderator sp0rsk, Nintendo did release a motion-controlled handheld game system, and it didn't change the world. The Pokemon Mini system fits the description of the patented item closely, making use of a motion sensor in a number of its tiny cartridge games. The dimensions of the unit match the appearance of the patent diagrams more than any Game Boy or DS product. And, in fact, looking at the foreign patent filing dates, it seems that applications for Japanese patents for components of this mystery device were filed in 1999 and 2000, which is a very long time before the Wii but not so long before the 2001 release of the Pokemon Mini.
Of course, the existence of the Mini doesn't mean that Nintendo won't use their patented technology for a new handheld system. It just means that this patent probably wasn't filed solely for the purpose of a new system. That's the bad news-- that snooping about in the US Patent Office's records probably hasn't revealed Nintendo's next system. The good news is that because the device we were all speculating about exists in the form of the Pokemon Mini, you can play the future of six years ago-- today! For sixty cents!
We'd also like to remind you that just because something has been done doesn't mean Nintendo can't try again and make a hit out of it. We are thinking specifically of handheld nongames here. Maybe the success of the Wii and DS, and Nintendo's new interest in casual all-ages gaming, will cause them to take a second look at this idea. With their full resources behind it, we're sure that the full-of-ideas Nintendo of today can come up with some great uses for a handheld waggle system.
