The Wii had its motion controls and wacky controllers, the 3DS had those 3D effects that everyone turns off, and the Wii U had that stupid tablet controller thing, but what kind of lame gimmick will the NX have? This is the console that’s supposed to turn things around for Nintendo, so its gimmick is going to have to be exceptionally enticing. We still don’t have anything official, but a recently discovered patent from Nintendo may give us an idea of what to expect from the NX: outward facing senors.
We recently reported on two patents which – given the hype surrounding Nintendo’s next console, the NX – have understandably triggered quite a bit of interest. The first involved clickable, shoulder-placed scroll wheels while the second was related to haptic feedback on a touchscreen. Another patent connected to Nintendo has now surfaced, and this one has the potential to be the most interesting of the lot. United States Patent Application 20150253932 was filed in February this year but only got published this month. Nintendo’s name isn’t on the patent, but it’s been submitted by Fumihiko Inoue, who has connections with the company and has previously filed patents on Nintendo’s behalf. The patent shows a controller with four “outward-facing linear image sensors” on each side. These can be used to sense movement and objects around the device – one application illustrated shows the controller on a table with the player tapping to the left of the device to trigger an input in the game. Another shows the controller being held and the sensors being used by sliding a finger down one side. A third illustration features an amiibo-like toy interacting with the device, although it would seem that the sensor is reading the physical object itself rather than using any kind of NFC functionality.
