Topic: Help Feature Confirmed for New Super Mario Bros. Wii

[Ian Sane]

As for a future with gamers who only watch their games, remember Nintendo patented it so non-Nintendo games won't have the feature anyway.

Yeah but patents are usually very specific.  Nintendo can't just say "the game plays itself if you want" and earn a patent.  So if it took off other developers could just do something similar but technically different.  Case in point my suggestion of making the "instant win" an item of sorts with limited uses is technically different than Nintendo's feature.  Somebody could do that and effectively offer the same thing.

Is Nintendo's idea just literally a video or does the game actually play itself?  Whatever it is, do the opposite, and you would likely get around the patent and provide similar functionality to the player.

[Nick DiMola]

I though Toki Tori handled a system like this well. You could use an item to skip a level, but in order to retrieve that level skip item you needed to eventually beat the level you previously couldn't beat.

[NWR_insanolord]

As for a future with gamers who only watch their games, remember Nintendo patented it so non-Nintendo games won't have the feature anyway.

Yeah but patents are usually very specific.  Nintendo can't just say "the game plays itself if you want" and earn a patent.  So if it took off other developers could just do something similar but technically different.  Case in point my suggestion of making the "instant win" an item of sorts with limited uses is technically different than Nintendo's feature.  Somebody could do that and effectively offer the same thing.

Is Nintendo's idea just literally a video or does the game actually play itself?  Whatever it is, do the opposite, and you would likely get around the patent and provide similar functionality to the player.

According to one of the guys on ListenUp it has three degrees, 1st one has a video of what you're supposed to do play in a small window, picture-in-picture kind of thing, 2nd pauses the game and plays the video full screen, 3rd actually plays it for you.

[broodwars]

As for a future with gamers who only watch their games, remember Nintendo patented it so non-Nintendo games won't have the feature anyway.

Yeah but patents are usually very specific.  Nintendo can't just say "the game plays itself if you want" and earn a patent.  So if it took off other developers could just do something similar but technically different.  Case in point my suggestion of making the "instant win" an item of sorts with limited uses is technically different than Nintendo's feature.  Somebody could do that and effectively offer the same thing.

Is Nintendo's idea just literally a video or does the game actually play itself?  Whatever it is, do the opposite, and you would likely get around the patent and provide similar functionality to the player.

According to one of the guys on ListenUp it has three degrees, 1st one has a video of what you're supposed to do play in a small window, picture-in-picture kind of thing, 2nd pauses the game and plays the video full screen, 3rd actually plays it for you.

I'm still amazed they got away with patenting that.  2 of those 3 things have been done by DVDs and Blu-Rays for years.

[NWR_Lindy]

This seems to be a pretty popular topic on the interwebs.

http://www.destructoid.com/a-difficult-subject-136911.phtml

[ShyGuy]

In two years, Sony and Microsoft will bring out their own help systems and say they have been working on them for ages.

[BlackNMild2k1]

In two years, Sony and Microsoft will bring out their own help systems and say they have been working on them for ages.

Natal will see the level of frustration on your face and adjust the difficulty accordingly.