Nintendo Patents "Massively Single-Player Gaming"

[DoctorFinger]

Generally I shy away from doing news posts on patent filings. Some good info can be gleaned from them, but more often than not it's a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. That's probably the case here, but it's too interesting to pass by.

Nintendo has applied for a patent on "Massively Single-Playing Online Game". I know, that sounds like something made up for an April Fools Day joke on a gaming site. But it's a real thing that Nintendo (apparently) wants to pursue.

How exactly would that work? You wouldn't see any other players in the environment, but you'd see the effects of their play.
Another example given had one player spotting a pile of building materials in a virtual world and making a house out of it. Since the world is the same, the next player to happen along finds not a heap of lumber and tools, but a finished house (with the builder nowhere to be seen). Additionally, Nintendo's filing suggested that one player could gossip to a non-player character in the world, who would then pass it along to other players.

The application also covers one tweak to make the game world more traditionally single-player. If players have "friended" one another, they would be able to see each other and interact in the same environment. Sort of like a really big Animal Crossing I guess.

The 2010 patent filing also mentions that this would be for "a home video game system such as the Nintendo Wii 3D video game system, a Nintendo DS or other 3D capable interactive computer graphics display systems". Nintendo hasn't mentioned 3D as part of the WiiU's capabilities, and I find it hard to believe that they have a second new console waiting in the wings. But it may show the direction they were considering going with the Wii's successor as recently as last year.

So here's the ultimate question: does an MSP game appeal to you? At first blush it sounds strange, but the more I think about it the more ideas I have for it. But it does seem like a very Nintendo idea: both strange and appealing, nominally embracing online but at the same time scorning everything we traditionally associate with it.

Source - Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6328634/nintendo-applies-for-massively-single-player-patent-mentions-wii-3d)

[Bone]

Sigh. They still don't get the appeal of being online with actual people.

[Ink Asylum]

Sounds like what Spore did. It also shouldn't be a patent.

[Narradisall]

Dislike.

Not Sony at all, Nintendo really don't get online stuff, I'd agree with Ink, it sounds a bit like what Spore did, and yes, it shouldn't be a patent.

What's next, someone Patents MMO's?

[Ink Asylum]

Believe me, if this kind of software patent had been as widespread back when the MMO genre was invented someone probably would have done so.

[Gorvi]

Dislike.

Sony really don't get online stuff, I'd agree with Ink, it sounds a bit like what Spore did, and yes, it shouldn't be a patent.

What's next, someone Patents MMO's?
Sony?

Anyway, this sounds like Demon's Souls, how is this patentable?

[violent]

Sigh. They still don't get the appeal of being online with actual people.

Agreed. TF2 single player is the best game in the last few years.

[Narradisall]

Sony?

Anyway, this sounds like Demon's Souls, how is this patentable?

Yeah, FUCK SONY!

........I meant Nintendo...

[Ink Asylum]

Anyway, this sounds like Demon's Souls, how is this patentable?

Because the patent system in America is fundamentally broken.

[Abednigo]

Sony?

Anyway, this sounds like Demon's Souls, how is this patentable?

Demon's Souls is the first thing I thought of too. But this sounds like Nintendo once again trying to control how players play online. Forcing protection on people so they can't interact Does Nintendo really still think all their fans are perpetually 12 years old? Sure seems like it with crap like this.

But since I like the feel of an MMO in a single player game, I could probably get into something like this if done right.

[MagGnome]

Perhaps this means that Nintendo is actually making a NEW Animal Crossing instead of releasing the Nintendo 64 port for the 5th time.

Haha, right...

[Joshkdmw]

Perhaps this means that Nintendo is actually making a NEW Animal Crossing instead of releasing the Nintendo 64 port for the 5th time.

Haha, right...

Animal crossing was never on the 64. It was first released on Gamecube.

Attach the stone of shame.

[Ink Asylum]

Animal crossing was never on the 64. It was first released on Gamecube.

Attach the stone of shame.

It was released in Japan on the N64 before being ported to the GameCube in both Japan and the US.

[MagGnome]

Animal crossing was never on the 64. It was first released on Gamecube.

Attach the stone of shame.

You are the one who should be ashamed. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_crossing

Animal Crossing, originally released only in Japan for the Nintendo 64 in 2001, was eventually ported to the Nintendo GameCube and released in all other regions by 2002.

It should be rather obvious when playing the game that it was originally an N64 title. They've now released that same game 4 times with only minor tweaks. For shame.

I'm revoking your Nintendo Fan card. :p

[CES]

Nintendo have a habit of patenting gameplay mechnics specifically in addition to IP's, they currently hold (or did) a patent on the Eternal Darkness sanity meter amongst other things.

While any one company holding a patent for this kind of thing, I like the idea as a gameplay system. Also, Peter Molyneux is probably going to shoot himself for not thinking of it first.

[Goronmon]

It's weird because I was just thinking about making a game using a similar concept yesterday. An online text-based adventure game where the world was generated and the players were basically competing to beat the "boss", and then a new world would be created.

[Bone]

To be clear from my original trollish post, I love this anonymous online idea for certain games, but I hate these sort of technology patents, and I hate that Nintendo's ideas for online community (in general) seem to date back to 1997.

[MagGnome]

To be clear from my original trollish post, I love this anonymous online idea for certain games, but I hate these sort of technology patents, and I hate that Nintendo's ideas for online community (in general) seem to date back to 1997.

I think you're being too generous. There were more robust online gaming systems on the PC than anything Nintendo has put out.

[Wasson_]

I would tell Nintendo that this has all the appeal of living in a sad ghost-world where you are eternally alone, where the earth is but lifeless regolith and the horizon is eternally obscured in the wind blown ashes of the long dead. Yet you cannot die because there is a unholy force that puppets you on forevermore...somehow through some perverse means, staving off the entropy that would normally consume your body in sweet death and release you to another realm so that you suffer no more.

[Joshkdmw]

You are the one who should be ashamed. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_crossing

I'm revoking your Nintendo Fan card. :p

Have at. Given their 3ds e shop releases, I'm not likely to need it any time soon.

[MagGnome]

Have at. Given their 3ds e shop releases, I'm not likely to need it any time soon.

Wait, are you saying that the e-shop releases have been bad or good?

[MagGnome]

I would tell Nintendo that this has all the appeal of living in a sad ghost-world where you are eternally alone, where the earth is but lifeless regolith and the horizon is eternally obscured in the wind blown ashes of the long dead. Yet you cannot die because there is a unholy force that puppets you on forevermore...somehow through some perverse means, staving off the entropy that would normally consume your body in sweet death and release you to another realm so that you suffer no more.

So they're making a new Eternal Darkness? Awesome! :D

[Widgetcraft]

This has been done in a more limited way, so... whatever.

[Bone]

So they're making a new Eternal Darkness? Awesome! :DMan. That would be so awesome, I loved the Sanity meter. Actually I loved overloading it and losing my head/balance/faith in my Gamecube hardware.

[CES]

Man. That would be so awesome, I loved the Sanity meter. Actually I loved overloading it and losing my head/balance/faith in my Gamecube hardware.

I have yet to see a game that can outdo Eternal Darkness in raw mindfuck power. The fact that it also had a strong story and excellent characters made me almost feel sad to see it on the Gamecube since few people got to play it.

[Joshkdmw]

Wait, are you saying that the e-shop releases have been bad or good?

Which stance do you think is most likely?

[MagGnome]

Which stance do you think is most likely?

I'm honestly not sure. Your first statement was rather vague, and I have no idea how many games nor of what quality are on the e-shop. :p

[Joshkdmw]

I'm honestly not sure. Your first statement was rather vague, and I have no idea how many games nor of what quality are on the e-shop. :p

It was a derisive statement. They're whiffing almost every week, with way too few vc titles.

[J Arcane]

Yeah. I refrained from breaking the fanboy lust in the sale thread, but the Ambassador program had me in stitches. I'm not sure there's even 20 games on the eShop worth having from what I've seen in the release lists.

[Joshkdmw]

Not yet, there isn't. But the Ambassador games aren't on there yet, and they do look pretty spiffy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge nintendo fan, but they're having some real troubles building up a library of shit I wanna buy online.

[MagGnome]

Yeah. I refrained from breaking the fanboy lust in the sale thread, but the Ambassador program had me in stitches. I'm not sure there's even 20 games on the eShop worth having from what I've seen in the release lists.

The Ambassador games aren't for sale in the store. They are special games that only the Ambassador's will be able to download, at least for now.

That seems like a stupid decision to me, but it is Nintendo we're talking about here. -_-

[Widgetcraft]

The ten NES games will be put up on the marketplace later in the year, as updated 3D versions. The versions the Ambassadors get at first will be normal 2D emulated versions, though they'll be allowed to download the 3D versions when they are released. The ten GBA games are what won't be sold to anyone else, at least for the foreseeable future.