Image: Nintendo
Nintendo, in its ongoing battle against Pocketpair and Palworld, has been filing various patents left, right, and centre in the US, the latest of which is almost certainly cause for concern.
As detailed by Games Fray, Patent No. 12,403,39 has been granted which essentially covers the summoning of a sub character and letting it fight on your behalf. Now, we’re not sure about you, but we can already think of quite a few games that make use of such mechanics outside of Pokémon. Elden Ring, for example?
It goes into further detail and states that the sub character can either be controller by issuing commands, or it can act on its own accord, battling enemies automatically should any appear within the immediate vicinity.
So, according to analysis from Games Fray, games that make us of all of the following could potentially trigger an infringement lawsuit from Nintendo:
1. There must be a PC, console or other computing device and the game is stored on a drive or similar storage medium.
2. You can move a character in a virtual space.
3. You must be able to summon a character. They call it a “sub character” by which they mean it’s not the player character, but, for example, a little monster such as a Pokémon that the player character has at its disposal.
Then the logic branches out, with items 4 and 5 being mutually exclusive scenarios, before reuniting again in item 6.
4. This is about summoning the “sub character” in a place where there already is another character that it will then (when instructed to do so) fight.
5. This alternative scenario is about summoning the “sub character” at a position where there is no other character to fight immediately.
6. This final step is about sending the “sub character” in a direction and then letting an automatic battle ensue with another character. It is not clear whether this is even needed if one previously executed step (4) where the “sub character” will basically be thrown at another character.
The world of patents is complicated, and we’ve no doubt that there will be a number of loop holes that developers could potentially take advantage of to avoid Nintendo’s wrath. It’s not good though, is it? This is such a wide-reaching game mechanic, and so many titles already make use of it.
This isn’t just targeting Palworld, let’s put it that way. Whether Nintendo actually intends to make use of the patent in its legal battle against Pocketpair is unclear at this stage, but the mere fact that it exists is a bit of a blow.
What are your thoughts on this latest patent from Nintendo? Leave a comment in the usual place and let us know.
[source gamesfray.com, via windowscentral.com]
Nintendo Life’s resident horror fanatic, when he’s not knee-deep in Resident Evil and Silent Hill lore, Ollie likes to dive into a good horror book while nursing a lovely cup of tea. He also enjoys long walks and listens to everything from TOOL to Chuck Berry.