Nintendo Filed Patent for Touch Screen Steering Wheel: Cool or Stupid?
February 28th, 2010
I don’t own a Nintendo DS, so this time I’m not being sarcastic: DS owners, do you think controlling vehicles on your portable would be more fun if you had a virtual steering wheel? Because it seems that Nintendo thinks that it’s a great idea: the company filed a patent for a “Driving Game Steering Wheel Simulation Method and Apparatus” last November.
You can check out the full details at the USPTO‘s website, but here’s the short version: it’s a touch screen steering wheel, apparently for a portable gaming device, as shown in the above sketches. It may be controlled using either a stylus or fingers. It may have support for vibration. The steering’s sensitivity may be adjustable.
If you ask me, I think a stylus-controlled steering wheel is a dumb, dumb, DUMB idea. The whole point of the interface is to make a driving game more “natural”; why add it if you’re going to gimp it with a mediating tool, i.e. the stylus? But as I said, I’ve never used a DS, so maybe I’m wrong.
[via Go Rumors via Gadgetizer]
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Categories: Just Plain Fun Mobile Tech Technology Video Games
Tags: concept driving game gaming nintendo nintendo ds patent portable steering wheel touchscreen
I agree about stylus-controlled racing games being a bad idea. But I should add that this has already been done before by a Ridge Racer DS game and one of the Asphalts (the one on DSiWare). Additionally, the carry strap with the thumb bit on it came out with the original DS’s (think the ones that came with Metroid Prime: First Hunt). So I don’t know why Nintendo have filed a patent for something they technically shouldn’t be able to patent (it’s been done before, and last time I checked, to patent something, originality is a major factor). I’m not excited about it anyway, using the on-screen steering wheel in Asphalt was only passable because of how easily things turned on that (even then, felt no where near as good as Asphalt 6 on the iphone).
Welcome to 2004. Population: Technabob.
Now, now, you don’t have to be mean.
Yeah, my bad. I was drawn in by the filing date of the patent. Sorry!
Anyway all patents based on software should be forbidden and obsolete. It is not good to patent an idea.