Sony Patents Touchscreen Hand Held…
Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 11:49am by Will
Looks like we’re going to be seeing another hand held from Sony sometime in the unknown future. What is even funnier is the fact that Sony is still up to their old games, taking ideas from Nintendo. Although that could be an unfair claim, we still don’t know exactly what this “Touchscreen Hand Held” can do… but we can only imagine. What surprises me even more is the fact that the patent was passed by the US Patent & Trademark Office with no problem.
Also the patent document shows that it was ex-Sony exec Phil Harrison who was the inventor for this device. Now that he’s with Infogrames, it’s really a wonder why and if Sony will still push this idea through the gate… I don’t know if it is just me but this just seems to be a lot more than a little bit fishy?
July 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
It’s not REALLY that it’s a “trick” or whatever for people to immitate ot “steal” from other companies. Its a matter of doing what they can to deliver the next standard. Touchscreen capabilities IS the standard in handheld gaming these days.
Sony can easily make a new touchscreen that can detect two different points of pressure, instead of just one like the DS, and get away with it being different I think.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Lawsuit! Lawsuit! Lawsuit! Lawsuit! Lawsuit! Lawsuit!
Hehehehe!
Sony, please come up with original ideas.
If you can’t, come up with original DESIGNS.
Quit stealing from Nintendo!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
@ Fesworks
Actually I think you are right about them doing the two different pressure points of detection. I just came across an Image that shows the same exact idea.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
LMFAO, that picture is awesome.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Touching is good, right? Do you blame other companies for wanting to get into this new market? Competition is good.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
lol @ Phil Harrison as the inventor. VP’s are not engineers. Does the patent really indicate that he “invented” it, or just that he filed the patent…?
July 4th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Various companies have been developing multi-touch touch pads for a while. The iPhone was the first consumer example.
Listen alright, Nintendo didn’t invent the touch screen. They weren’t the first to put a game on a touch device. Nintendo doesn’t have an R&D division researching quantum properties of organic semiconductor hybrid materials, or micro lasers integrated into lithographic processes, or terahertz frequency emitters or scanners. This is not what Nintendo does. They are not a technology company.
What they are is an innovating applications company. They see other existing technologies, and leverage them in a way people hadn’t considered, usually for games. The core technology powering the pointing capability of the Wiimote comes out of an optical mouse and the accelerometers are on license. Still, no one else had the insight to leverage these technologies the same way Nintendo did. In that respect they’re like Apple.
Sony on the other hand actually does do these things. The OLED’s they’re making: they cooked their own version up in their own lab. The Blue laser diode in the Bluray drives: Sony invented them. It costs them a bloody lot, and I’m not saying they’re the paragon of invention, but tech credit where tech credit’s due. So far as I heard this particular patent was for a tactile touch display, where the individual pixels would physically move up and down, allowing the user to feel them. That’s pretty damn new. And it’s not like Sony would never have considered this if Nintendo didn’t make the DS either. All the big tech companies had research into motion sensing and touch screen interfaces for possible gaming applications for years. The difference is none of them thought it would actually make a decent product. Now that Nintendo’s shown the way, it will become the new standard, and the multitude of alternative approaches, not to mention the tech that Nintendo has merely licensed and does not own protection on, means it can be replicated in some form by everyone, though perhaps not be as user friendly or accepted by the public.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Hmm, maybe that tactile one was another one from earlier in the week.
July 4th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
ARE YOU SERIOUS!! Come on sony! you can do better than that!
July 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
“And it’s not like Sony would never have considered this if Nintendo didn’t make the DS either”
Sorry Elmer, but you’re dead wrong. Sony never bothers going down roads until they’ve proven to have a pot of gold at the end.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
This reminds me of the new cell phone (can’t remember which company) coming out that looks exactly like the iPhone, haha. Of course it’s not illegal to use similar technology/ideas, but it does seem kind of tacky. If Sony is so hip to the touch screen scene, maybe they should have put their product on the market first? They should try being innovative for themselves, not wait to see how Nintendo does beforehand.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Ok I don’t like Sony to do anything that seems like they are “borrowing” from Nintendo. That looks freaking sweet, by the way.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SHOULD DO!?
DUMP THE FIRST P…
S2P…
;]
July 4th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
BY THE WAY THE PIC IS FAKE IN CASE ANYOF YOU HAVE BEEN WONDERING… ITS BEEN AROUND SINSE THE LITE CAME OUT MAYBE OLDER IDK THATS WHEN I RECALL SEEING IT)
July 4th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Hah, nice picture. It’s the DSP!
July 4th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
@droop4 - Even though that photo is fake, there is still a possibility the new Sony handheld will look like that. I wouldn’t put it past them.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
So do these guys have a single original idea left in their collective heads? Cuz it seems like everything they’ve debuted since the Sixaxis have basically been knockoffs of Nintendo or others.
July 5th, 2008 at 7:27 am
@ Richter
I didn’t say they’d go down that road. I’d say they’d consider it. And by consider, I mean R&D plus patents filed, as is the case here. It’s common practice. Tech firms develop or propose lots of technologies that they don’t have the courage to properly try on the market.
“Sorry Elmer, but you’re dead wrong. Sony never bothers going down roads until they’ve proven to have a pot of gold at the end”
Now this is complete opposite day level bull crap. The Playstation anyone?!! How many successful CD/3D systems can you think of before the Playstation that gen? None. How many were Catastrophic failures. Lets count. The 3DO, the Panasonic CDi, the Amstrad 32, the Jaguar and its CD add on, the PC engine CD add on, the Genesis/Mega Drive CD add on, and sort of the Neo-Geo CD. Everything every company had done said “go down this road and you’ll lose tens of millions. Nintendo actually went down the opposite path and Sony specifically didn’t want to do what Nintendo were anymore.
How about the Walkman? Classes actually use this as a business case study of how not to listen to what everyone tells you and what everyone’s doing. The Walkmans originally lost money. No one had made in ear headphones before. Focus groups and analysts said it was a bad idea. No one had properly sold before. Somone in Sony believed in the product and pushed it. It became a global phenomenon.
Look, friend in my workplace think I’m crazy for the passionate hate I have for Sony and their business practices. They do lie, cheat and steal. But I’m not going to start making crap up about the impressive things they did too.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
My spelling/grammar today is atrocious. Anyway, I forgot the Saturn, though that failed well after Sony would have had time to reconsider. I count that as 8 failures versus 0 successes in CD/3D platforms before Playstation, certainly not a ‘proven pot of gold’.
July 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
@elmer: Your posts make sense! Even though I’m not a big fan of $ony even though I own a Playstation and a Playstation 2. I’m Swedish and Swedish is my native language so my English spelling isn’t perfect, but my Swedish is as good as perfect.
July 5th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I’ll wait until an official announcement before assuming anything. However, Sony “borrowing” Nintendo’s ideas wouldn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary. They blatantly imitated the D-pad, the analog stick, rumble, and God knows what else I’m forgetting, often after previously pooh-poohing these features (I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers them referring to rumble as a “last-gen feature”… lol).
Considering the success of the Wii and DS, I would be completely shocked if the Xbox 720/PS4 didn’t prominently advertise motion controls, touch screens, casual gaming/weight loss/etc, and then claim it was all their idea and/or they’re doing it better than Nintendo. Many will claim that the consumer ultimately benefits from everyone else adopting these new “industry standards” and improving upon them, but I guess that’s because they don’t have a problem with imitation over innovation, and Nintendo are the only ones coming up with novel ideas for everyone else to try to mimic and one-up.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I have a PS1 and 2,but I’m sticking to Nintendo from now on.Unless I suddenly get rich!
July 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
You can tell it’s just a photoshopped DS, at the bottom you can make out the slot for inserting gameboy advanced games.
Why would a Sony system allow you to do that
July 6th, 2008 at 3:06 am
I didn’t believe the rumors before……It’s good Sony is moving towards touch-screen, but this may be a blatant rip-off of the DS
July 7th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
@ elmer
who cares if sony actually has a r&d dept for their crap and nintendo doesn’t, they still flat out ripped nintendo off. it looks like my black ds with a sony logo on it. nintendo did it first and right. for all that r&d money it looks like we’re the ones paying for it. if we let sony lead the way we’d all be paying $3,000 for next gen game consoles & $200 for games and all you get for that is pretty graphics and no new ideas or innovation. Sony would have never changed anything since it looks like they go with the status quo and we’d all be robots marching to the beat of their bluray drum. i’ll leave the innovation up to the big N thank you very much and follow them with my wallet happily and without resistance. if sony could come up with an original idea and make it work for the masses i would bite my tongue and join them, but they won’t/don’t so no worries here
July 7th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
and don’t use the cd format argument, because originally that was nintendo’s idea working with sony. nintendo created their own worst enemy by jumping ship, but sony didn’t lead the way. they were left with the ps1 on their hands and didn’t let it go to waste. more like a recycler than an innovator.