Miyamoto Patents some type of Hint System?
Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 12:10pm by Will
A new Nintendo patent has showed up on the blogging scene yesterday. What is really interesting about this is that it was not filed by Nintendo. It was actually filed by the game design honcho himself, Shigeru Miyamoto. The patent goes on to describe a lot of things, here is an excerpt.
[0008]Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program for allowing a player to freely play and enjoy the game to the end, and a game apparatus.
[0009]Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program for preventing a player who desires to clear a game by him/herself from losing his/her interest in the game, and a game apparatus.
As of right now it seems to be focused on helping a player get to the end of a game through a series of onscreen hints. Although, it seems that these hints are part of an add on or put into an outside storage device (SD card maybe?), or possibly part of some type of downloadable content. It might be a way of having a players guide displayed on screen, instead of dealing with a paper back book instead, which is interesting. So what is your take on this Infendo, what do you think this is all about?
Visit The Neo Gaf thread or The Patent Page for more information.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Oh! maybe will it be available for the Wii 2?
January 9th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
If this is some kind of (hopefully optional) player assist/hint and chapter skip that can bridge the gap between a core game and a non-gamer audience, then I’m all for this. Maybe this could be the way forward for preserving our classical game design in the face of a broadening audience without segregating anyone.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:19 am
It´s the “Win Now” button!
January 11th, 2009 at 10:31 am
“our classical game design”
I LOLed.
Elmer, you have no say in what will pass as “game design” in the future.
Right now Shigeru Miyamoto is making the decisions that will shape the industry for the next decade or so. I hope it isn’t optional; that it will be one final blow to your weakening “hardcore gamer” ideals.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I hope that the option for hints will be optional. I hate it when a game tells me what to do because then the game is playing itself. If you don’t quite know what I mean by that let’s look at the phoenix wright games.
No matter what option you pick you either get a penalty or not. Such as presenting evidence for a murder weapon. You have three or four pieces of evidence relating to a murder weapon yet you MUST present evidence A and not Evidence B even though it’s the same thing so the game shoe horns you into every option and you really don’t get to play the game. That’s the one thing I hated about that series, it played itself otherwise they weren’t bad at all.
Back to the topic at hand. Sure it’s cool to give the player some help, but if it’s a mandatory download or something that displays hints on the screen without my say so, that will make me NOT want to play the game as I don’t get to figure anything out. Nothing would be worse than playing the newest Zelda game and then all of a sudden:
Game Hint: *blip* Push this block here, climb up on it, shoot arrow at target on other side to lower the bridge
Me: WTF?! Thanks for telling me what to do game. I wanted to figure the damn thing out for my self. Oh well, the boss is next let’s whoop his ass!
Game: *enter’s boss room*
Game Hint: *Blip* To beat this boss you must first shoot the boss in the head, then equip the Iron Boots. Grab a chain and yank on it for a moment, then attack the glowing point on the boss.
Me: DAMMIT, I WANTED TO FIGHT THE BOSS MY SELF!!!!!! STUPID GAME *shuts off system*
Now it would be understandable if the hints only kicked in if you are taking a LONG time to solve a puzzle of you died several times in a boss fight because you don’t know what to do. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but I’m not at all excited for this.
January 12th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Seems like this is what the storage on the wiimote and its’ speaker amy have been used for. At least it would have been one really good application for the wiimote.