Sony - who suffered some harsh press from hardcore gamers when they announced the tilt sensors in their PS3 remote may be about to enrage Nintendo fanboys and the general gaming press once again.
A recent patent filed by Sony states:
An input device providing users with a pointing capability includes a sender portion and a receiver portion. The sender portion is adapted to be manipulated by a user to specify a target point within a target area. The sender portion projects a light beam including a pattern on to the target area. A receiver portion includes one or more sensor units located in or near the target area. At least some of the sensor units receive a portion of the light beam regardless of the location of the target point within the target area. A processing unit in the receiver portion analyzes the portions of the light beam received by one or more sensor units to determine an attribute of the target point. The attribute can be the location or relative motion of the target point. The receiver portion may be integrated with a display device.
I'll leave you all to make up your own mind.
[source appft1.uspto.gov]
Comments 6
Just because they've submitted a patent doesn't really mean anything, Nintendo always submit patents for their products, I'm sure they would of done so for the sensor bar a year or so ago.
Getting a patent approved is a whole new ball game.
Wow that does sound exactly like the wii. I thought they would have at least changed it in some way. I can't believe the blatant copying but it does show what they think of the Wii and motion sensing is the future so its good to move forward with all consoles.
That's nothing like the Wii's system, in fact it's completely inferior to the Wii.
The Wii's sensor bar isn't a sensing unit, it's a pair of lights which allow the remote to triangulate it's position. The name sensor bar is a misnomer, the remote does all the sensing. Hence you can use candles instead of the sensor bar.
The PS3 system sounds really dodgey. Since it requires multiple sensors the target area of light emited from the PS3's remote will be pretty big. This also implies that any reflective objects nearby could have a nasty effect on the accuracy.
Can I just state - I posted this "news" with a hint of tongue in cheek.
Patent wording is often very mysterious, just remember that Microsoft managed to patent the software on a "portable music player" that allows you to select songs! I'm no expert on laws but these guys always try to cover as many ideas as possible in one patent, of course without being vauge.
But what this DOES tell you is that Sony are seriously considering doing something similar to Wii.
If its a good idea, copy it (obviously within reason). At the end of the day gamers will benefit from the added R&D poured into motion sensing games.
Nintendo will always be the ones that got there first though
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