Nintendo Touchscreen Controller Patent

Megalith

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Many are assuming that this could be the controller for the Nintendo NX. I was kind of hoping that Nintendo would just go back to the basics…

Unlike the Wii U or the DS portables—which have small rectangular touchscreens placed between more traditional button-based controls on each side— the patent shows an elliptical touchscreen that dominates almost the entire front surface of the device, smartphone-style. The only break in that surface is two small holes on either side for "operation sticks" (read: analog thumbsticks) that extend deep into the controller. The tops of these clickable sticks sit nearly flush with the screen, letting players move their thumbs smoothly from analog controls to the touchscreen directly adjacent.
 
That looks incomprehensibly stupid as presented in the pictures. Presumably they would go with a more standard rectanglular screen for a real product :eek:
 
That looks incomprehensibly stupid as presented in the pictures. Presumably they would go with a more standard rectanglular screen for a real product :eek:

I could see the entire top being a touch screen.
 
Is Nintendo trying to put the final nail in their coffin on purpose, or are they really this stupid?
 
Really, Nintendo cannot make any mistakes this time.
If this controller is hooked to a 4K gaming beast I will RUN back to N
 
On one hand there's a bit of ingeniousness in it, in that the controller would never be limited by buttons since the touchscreen could simply have as many buttons as you need. That said, without any tactile response it might be a bit of a pain in the ass to play with if you in fact needed a game with that many buttons. Imagine a Street Fighter type of game with 6 buttons... are you pressing the right one? Are you even pressing a button?

Overall though, much like the Wii U, they want to make a big splash and they essentially increases the cost of the system by at least $100 (probably) because of their decision to make an expensive novelty controller instead of sticking with controllers that are tried and true.
 
seems stupid to me.

I want buttons, I want controls, I even want start and select.

Why does this make me think this new Nintendo console is going to be a flop?
 
Controller changes come with every Nintendo console and they still sell. I can just picture the moaning here when Nintendo went from the 438 buttons on the GameCube to 2 on the Wii.

Nintendo just wings it these days and survives on its tried and true classic games.
 
On one hand there's a bit of ingeniousness in it, in that the controller would never be limited by buttons since the touchscreen could simply have as many buttons as you need. That said, without any tactile response it might be a bit of a pain in the ass to play with if you in fact needed a game with that many buttons. Imagine a Street Fighter type of game with 6 buttons... are you pressing the right one? Are you even pressing a button?

Overall though, much like the Wii U, they want to make a big splash and they essentially increases the cost of the system by at least $100 (probably) because of their decision to make an expensive novelty controller instead of sticking with controllers that are tried and true.

Anybody who has played touchscreen games on their phone will instantly be able to tell you why Nintendo's method here is a bad idea: If you have more than 2... maybe 3 'buttons' on a screen, it's difficult to ensure you're pressing the right spot every time. Games like Limbo can work because fundamentally it's two buttons, each half of the screen as one. Gameloft games, however, blow, because you're trying to combine directional movement with multiple attack buttons without any ability to differentiate between any spot on the screen you press until after you try.

Revive the Gamecube controller and MAKE A PROPER FUCKING CONSOLE, Nintendo.
 
Apparently they didn't lose enough money on that shitty controller for the WiiU...Time for round two i guess. Oh well, here I was hoping not to skip more than one Zelda installment.
 
Oh, another weird and unwanted "innovation" from Nintendo that they'll ham-fistedly cram into first party titles and force devs to take "advantage" of.

Nope.

No thanks Nintendo. I've long since had enough of your horse-shit.

Also prepare for Nintendo's incoming micro-transactions. Nintendo over-values their own IPs though so I'm sure a Nintendo flavored micro-transaction will cost between 10-20 dollars.
 
Apparently they didn't lose enough money on that shitty controller for the WiiU...Time for round two i guess. Oh well, here I was hoping not to skip more than one Zelda installment.

You do have to at least slightly applaud them for being different. The Wii was very different when it came out, and that worked towards its favor. Personally I would have liked to have seen the Wii with much better graphics. I found it fun to play FPS games on as it was as close as you could get to aiming a gun at the screen again. you could aim however fast you could move your arm. So you have one very different idea that worked out in their favor, helped them sell lots of units. Then the next one was a flop. This one could go either way.
 
Why is everyone so surprised? Their controllers have always been "different". The NES and SNES were even weird controllers for their time, but they thankfully worked out relatively well. Then came the preposterous N64 controller (as much as I love it), Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U. All unique in their own way I suppose you could say.
 
You do have to at least slightly applaud them for being different. The Wii was very different when it came out, and that worked towards its favor. Personally I would have liked to have seen the Wii with much better graphics. I found it fun to play FPS games on as it was as close as you could get to aiming a gun at the screen again. you could aim however fast you could move your arm. So you have one very different idea that worked out in their favor, helped them sell lots of units. Then the next one was a flop. This one could go either way.

I do applaud them for trying to push the envelope. I take issue however when they continue trying to revive the dead horse. :D Mostly because I would be happy to buy a WiiU that excluded the useless tablet and had the price to match that exclusion. If the NX makes the same mistake I'm going to be pretty sore. Previous to the WiiU I always had one of every console in a generation.
 
I think it's a pretty cool idea, and it's also a lot more of a 'traditional' controller than the last couple of generations. The programmable buttons on the touch screen remind me of early ideas for the Steam controller (with its customizable middle buttons). My only concern would be having to use touch screen buttons as an action button. I'm hoping you'll be able to snap on more traditional button overlays (ie: snapping on a Genesis 6-button configuration on the right side of the controller replacing the right analog button).

Also, I'm hoping the NX (or whatever this controller will belong to) will keep the backwards compatibilty for old Nintendo hardware alive. The Wii U Pro controller is still pretty great and very traditional.
 
No, they can make plenty of mistakes. And this other patent is true they are heading to a major cluster fuck

http://theknow.tv/episode/the-know-...do-n-x-most-powerful-console-e-v-e-r-the-know

I really hope not.

The memory add-on for the N64 was stupid. Not because more RAM was a bad idea, but because it didn't come with the system by default not everyone had it so hardly any games were made that used it(such is the fate of practically every aftermarket console add-on ever).

As far as this touch screen controller goes... yeah Nintendo can sell some consoles. But their lack of AAA third party games is honestly kind of tiresome at this point.I would much rather play Mario, Metroid, Zelda, etc. on a PS4 or XB1 than deal with the god awful gimmicky controller on the Wii-U which you're still forced to use in some games even if you bought the pro controller(which I did, and got tired of having to swap back and forth due to some gimmick so now my Wii-U collects dust). They could easily compete with Sony and Microsoft if they'd just drop the gimmicks and fix their idiotic and outdated online network.
 
They will design something extremely ergonomic, and layer a screen on peripheral visible surface(s).
 
Now's the time to go old school Nintendo and release a console with some decent power to it.

The under-powered market is covered sufficiently and isn't going to be rectified for a looooong time.
 
Now's the time to go old school Nintendo and release a console with some decent power to it.

The under-powered market is covered sufficiently and isn't going to be rectified for a looooong time.

I agree they should bring back the equivalent of the game cube with regular old controllers and powerful processing
 
This looks like a weird version of a Vita. If it doesn't have proper adult sized thumbsticks, big thick grips and good triggers (like the first nV sheild) I'm out. I'm don't have tiny 6 years hands anymore and the Vita physical pains me to use for more than 20 minutes.
 
I do applaud them for trying to push the envelope. I take issue however when they continue trying to revive the dead horse. :D Mostly because I would be happy to buy a WiiU that excluded the useless tablet and had the price to match that exclusion. If the NX makes the same mistake I'm going to be pretty sore. Previous to the WiiU I always had one of every console in a generation.

I am with you there. I have every console besides the WiiU. Even one of the 10 people that bought a virtual boy back in the day haha. Looking at this patient, I could see this being nice or a complete mess, too hard to tell just yet.

Now's the time to go old school Nintendo and release a console with some decent power to it.

The under-powered market is covered sufficiently and isn't going to be rectified for a looooong time.

If you watch the video I link above about the other patient they filed I wouldn't hold my breathe on that one. Basically they have a patient for the system to use a supplementary unit to enhance the processing power of the main unit. You can attach multi secondary units to keep increasing processing power. You can also setup your system so that when you are not playing it, you offer up your unit to be used as a remote supplementary unit for others. So while playing a game the weather effects might be computed on a NX down the road. The sound by a unit across town. The AI by a few other units... Making the base unit then probably pretty underwhelming if you need / can connect multi devices together for better power. Now, for both of these there is no way to know if they are just getting patients or if they are really going to use any of this stuff. Only time will tell.
 
Yeah, I don't consider patents to be predictive of the future, as fun as it is to speculate. It's more like covering ass than an actual go to market strategy.
 
loved the nes, loves the snes, loved to death the n64, loved the gamecube... never bought a wii, never bought a wii u.

miyamoto is getting ancient... who's gonna replace him? id love to see a new IP that i actually care about. but maybe the current ones are so legendary there's an almost impossible standard to hit.

anyhow, if this console doesnt have comparable power/architectures to the ps4/xb1, then 3rd party support is going to be minimal. if that's the case, i hope nintendo creates a handful of 2nd party studios and encourages them to really explore the creative space.
 
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