Nintendo Updates Patent On “Motion Sensing Portable”

This week Nintendo made an update to a patent which can be summarized as a portable system with complete motion sensing abilities. The patent included a diagram of a Gameboy being moved and tilted in all of the basic directions. It’s a seafe bet that the Gameboy image is just a place holder though.

“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. 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.”

Chances are Nintendo wont make use of the patent. Motion sensing is simply too impractical to be implemented into a portable system. It wouldn’t work in vehicles, and it would drain the battery. Then again, there are ways around those kinds of problems.