Nintendo Files Portable Motion Control Patent

A patent for a motion-controlled handheld gaming device from Nintendo has been unveiled from the USPTO patent database, seemingly suggesting that Nintendo has plans to extend its hugely popular Wii moton-control to a handheld unit.

You can see an illustration from the patent right here and the patent states that: "A game system includes a housing to be held by a player. The housing incorporates an XY-axis acceleration sensor to detect an acceleration in an X-axis and Y-axis direction and a Z-axis contact switch to detect an acceleration in a Z-axis direction.”

It continues: “These sensor and switch detect at least one of an amount (e.g. tilt amount, movement amount, impact amount or the like) and a direction (e.g. tilt direction, movement direction, impact direction or the like) of a change applied to the housing. A simulation program provides simulation such that a state of a game space is changed related to at least one of the amount and direction of the change applied to the housing."

The patent application was filed on August 2nd this year using the names Iwao Masuyama, Toshiaki Suzuki, and Akira Takara as the inventors. Nintendo is stated as the 'assignee'; and the patent is filed on by U.S. "intellectual property lawyers", Nixon & Vanderhye. The law firm has a long track record in representing Nintendo.

So, although the pictures look horribly like an 8-year-old's portrayal of an ageing Game Boy, SPOnG is currently filing this news in the ‘bizarre but actually true’ folder.

^{source:technabob}