Nintendo Patent a Console that can be upgraded

Nintendo Patent a Console that can be upgraded with a supplemental computing device

| Source: Nintendo Patent Author: Mark Campbell

Nintendo Patent a Console that can be upgraded with a supplemental computing device

Nintendo has Patented the idea of a Console that can be upgraded with a supplemental computing device, allowing gamers to increase the speed or quality of the users gaming experience.

What this effectively is is an upgradeable console, a games console which can have it's computing power enhanced by adding an external "supplemental computing device" which can process data for the main console in order to allow games to play at a higher resolution or framerate.

Below is the abstract summarizing Nintendo's Patent;

Supplemental computing devices that provide processing and/or storage resources to game consoles to assist these game consoles in executing a game. In some instances, a game console locally executes a copy of a game using resources of the game console. In addition, however, the game console may couple to a supplemental computing device that includes resources that the game console may also utilize to increase the speed or quality of a user's gaming experience. For instance, the supplemental computing device may couple via a physical connection (e.g., a wired connection) to the game console for processing data associated with the game and providing a result back to the console, and/or for storing game data on behalf of the game console.

Right now it is unknown whether Nintendo plan on implementing this idea into their upcoming Nintendo NX console, but what Nintendo have effectively patented is the ability to upgrade their console partially through it's life cycle, allowing the Nintendo NX to potential have a much greater lifespan and visuals than competing consoles.

Right now this is just a patent, an idea, something which Nintendo may or may not implement into a future console, but the idea of an upgradeable console is not something that is new, the Nintendo 64 did have it's famous Expansion Pak, which upgrades the console from 4MB or RAM to 8MB. An upgradeable console is something that has never been done to the scale shown in Nintendo's new patent, adding more compute resources to the consoles and not just a few extra Megabytes of RAM.

You can join the discussion on Nintendo's Patent for an upgradeable console on the OC3D Forums.

Nintendo has Patented the idea of a Console that can be upgraded. https://t.co/wjHV8spsUH pic.twitter.com/0VFzudhxko — OC3D (@OC3D) December 7, 2015

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