Nintendo Patents Lifelike Speech

Yet another Nintendo videogame patent has just arisen. This new one is a patent for lifelike speech in a videogame. According to the patent’s description, it seems as though distance will play a factor in how well you hear a sound or how you project the sound. Will this be used for the Nintendo DS, possibly due to the built-in microphone, or the Revolution?

“the game player can obtain power-ups in a game that extends the distance of speech (e.g., a megaphone, a microphone, an amplifier, etc.). Similarly, power-ups in the game can be used to encode speech-only those with the appropriate decoder can understand what the player is saying, though others might be able to hear/see that something was being said. The virtual distance can be determined by a physical analysis of the environment around a game character–e.g., in-game geometry, material properties, ambient temperature, ambient noise and other virtual environmental affects can be taken into consideration in determining the path and reach of the message. For example in a very noisy virtual environment, the game player may need to shout in order to have his or her message seen/heard.”

“In another non-limiting example implementation, the game player does not manually select which other player or players can or can’t hear his or her speech. Just like in real life, any virtual game characters within certain virtual distance range (within the game) of the human player’s character or avatar will be able to hear the speech.”

Source: GoNintendo