Nintendo patents Game Boy casing with usable buttons for touchscreen devices - Sensationalist Headlines

http://www.siliconera.com/2018/10/04/nintendo-has-patented-a-game-boy-casing-for-touchscreen-devices/ Siliconera has discovered that Nintendo patented a Game Boy-esque casing for capacitative touchscreen devices in the US. It is a shell where you fit your device inside, and presumably use to play Game Boy games. The patent was filed on March 16, 2018. One of the key features of this Game Boy casing is the ability for inputs on the buttons on the casing to be sensed by the touchscreen beneath the buttons. This is possible whether bare-handed or wearing non-conductive gloves. Meanwhile, part of the casing is opened where the regular Game Boy’s screen would be. According to the patent, the game would be displayed in the corresponding portion of the touch screen that is viewable, making it possible to play the game with the cover attached to the touchscreen device (which in the example is a smartphone). you can see an example of a smartphone being placed inside the cover, and where the buttons and “screen” would correspond to on the touchscreen device. The buttons use a conductive sheet within the cover that enables the touchscreen to sense the input when the nub on the bottom side touches the touchscreen, in the same way human fingers are sensed. According to above picture, the casing also leaves open a small window (number 16) for the front camera and device speakerphone, and the top and bottom of the phone are not obstructed, so the user can connect the device to a speaker or USB device. The camera and speakerphone are able to be used as intended. Although the examples so far indicate that the cover is used for smartphones, Nintendo took care to put in that while it is an example of electronic equipment, it does not have to be limited to this, and “may be attached to other electronic equipment such as a tablet terminal that does not have a telephone function”. Either way, it seems that some sort of Game Boy emulation may be in the works at Nintendo, either for smartphones, tablets, or the Nintendo Switch. If this case is used for the Switch, we imagine that it would provide a pretty nifty way to utilize the Handheld mode touchscreen functionality.

reminder that just because they patent something doesn't mean it'll ever be used nintendo has a ton of patents from the wii era that never materialized

Seems like something tricky to manufacture for smartphones considering the considerable divergence in screen sizes. At the very least it'd require a wide variety of sizes

You could create it so the capacitance on the screen is variable, so that the buttons could work on any screen smaller than the one it's created for, but it'd be more complicated.

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/279873/d9bab143-2301-44b6-8357-55c9327c807c/image.png This thing already exists. Maybe Nintendo wants a piece of the market?

Honestly the design kinda reminds me of the original Poke'Dex.

Out of all the retro game systems resurfacing, this is probably the only one I would consider buying. Who doesn't love the GB?

knowing nintendo they don't explicitly want a piece of the market, they want existing pieces to stop making money off their property

Yup. It pretty much just dumps the rom into memory and plays it off of that, I think

It's 50 bucks tho

Why were they granted a patent with this much prior art?

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2691/1898/products/MLR-GB-Gameboy-Tetris-Phone-Cases-for-iPhone-X-6plus-6s-7-7plus-8-8plus-Play_88c57fc8-bbc0-4b11-94ce-3ee220fcf390_1903x.jpg?v=1522546664 Yeah, my first reaction was "Say goodbye to these!" Also, that gamepak one doesn't look like the buttons are interacting with the touch screen, it looks like they're standard buttons. Probably not covered in the patent.

I don't know if you're implying it's cheap or expensive here, 50 dollars seems like a pretty reasonable price

I was implying not worth it, but only because I personally still own a gameboy so the gimmick isn't necessarily worth it when you can just you know, use a gameboy.

when I google gameboy the shop listings that come up are lowest at $50 and that's the very old model pricing lists put the average cost for licensed cartridge games at $14 Presumably this casing will come with an official emulator of some sort, and for at least iOS that's not possible without jailbreaking. MFi controllers already run over $40-50. It also seems to leave the ports usable, so it's likely bluetooth as well.