Nintendo patent profers wacky Wii add-ons

research much??

Half of these items (pistol, golfclub, fishing rod) already exist as 3rd party products. I hardly think that puts Nintendo "always one step ahead of third-party peripheral designers". Its possible that Nintendo might find that they are violating someone else's patent?

Wii Remote can be used for much more interesting things

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Obligatory YouTube clips:

Finger Tracking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjPUkBXOU

Whiteboard application

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ

Head Tracking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

good on em

Nintendo lead where others follow, they only do games and consoles, which other manufacturer can claim to do both so well?

Duh

This looks like the original patent for the Wii remote itself. It was filed in April last year. This is not news.

Combine with Linux users and marital aids

I think the Wii remote could be combined with the Linux users who go to the sex aid web site. You can draw your own conclusions about where the remote could go and be used for.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/06/hw_linux_users_toy_spend/

Paris Hilton because... well, One Night In Paris (with a Wii remote)

Spectrum Fans...

Is it just me, or is that gun the old spectrum lightgun from Operation Wolf?

@ @TS

Any kind of board controller (skate, snow, whatever) is utterly useless.

With no momentum to hold you up in the turns, it is a complete hindrance to the gameplay and no immersion results.

The headtracking one has LOADS of mileage though. I have TrackIR for my PC and it utterly rocks. However I feel the wii solution is more body tracking that head tracking - This is only 3 degrees of freedom (Translation), but for console games that would probably be OK. 6 degrees of freedom (Translation and rotation) on 1st person FPS and Flight or driving sims has to be experienced to be believed how much immersion it gives.

For 6DOF you need at least 3 LEDs though, so the wii sensor bar with only 2 can only do 3DOF.

However, it would be trivially easy for nintendo to release a hat with 3 IR sources on it and a holder for the wiimote (to put where you usually put the sensor bar). The easiest way to do this would probably be to imitate the basic TIR package and have an IR transmitter to put pointing at you (say as part of the holder for the wiimote) and a cap with 3 reflectors on it. An active hat with LEDs is another option (which is what I do with my PC), but you would not want that for a wii as you need to be able to jump around, and I think a hat with a battery attached would not work.

I think head / body tracking will see a massive increase in popularity soon, and it should be simple to add to existing consoles (eg like the eye toy for the PS)

European patent application? I think not

Only the JP priority application and a US convention application available on espacenet, and not a sign of the equivalent EP, on espacenet or on the European Register (which would be there in both cases if a European patent application was sought).

The JP priority application (JP20060129732) was filed on 09 May 2006, this appears to be one of the original patent applications(s) for the Wiimote itself, and not a 'new/recent European patent application' for yet 'more housings for the Wiimote'.

This US (for it is a US convention) was only recently published (January 2008, 18 months from the 2006 priority date or thereabouts), which is probably why it's only raised some interest now.

Less sensationalism, more facts please.

zx mania

Oh man operation wolf on the spectrum aahhhhh was there anything more freaky! why the hell did you end up with a massive white strobe line on the screen when you fired the gun! and the grenades looked like chicken legs, oh that was the best black and yellow game ever.

Rookie with the target shoot was the best although I did quite like that robot attack as well.