Nintendo Voice Chat Patent - Interesting!

[Thunder Child]

A new patent I just came across contains details regarding Nintendo's voice chat system, and some sort of voice recognition based on how you actually say words. The important thing to note here is that it is actual voice chat, and it is online, and it looks like it's going to be implimented on the Revolution.

Clicky to see it all.

If you read the patent.. wow.. Nintendo are looking to use voice chat in some really inventive ways. No more simply shouting expletives at each other (Halo 2, I'm looking your way), or random arguing.. not that that was what always happened you understand.

A couple of quotes from it:

...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."

Can you imagine playing an FPS and having to shout to your teammates as you're caught in the crossfire? Or not being able to communicate with your team mate until you find them on the map and get within close enough distance?

And the Revolution probably wouldn't have to be a rediculously beefy console to process the effect of physical environment on the sound of someones voice, either. I mean, it could be an extension of the physics engine, along side weight of an object they could have voice mufflification.

And now that I think about it, Halo 2 does this sort of thing. To an extent. So this seems like the natural evolution of that, really. In Halo 2, anyone could hear you within a game area of, say 20 metres. You pressed white to activate your radio, then all the team could hear what you said, but also anyone within 20 metres.

That might be confusing, but basically it means that if an enemy was to hide near you, they could hear what was being said into the radio. Therefore hearing enemy tactics. In MGS3 it taken to a whole new level, with you having to use the radio to communicate with team mates, and if it's shot, in true MGS fashion you can't communicate.

That is the sorta thing I want from next gen! =D

 

[Da Master of Unowns]

Wow! So cool. So what you're saying is that people will be able to talk to each other on games as if the game were real life? Awsome. Just plain awsome. TOO awsome. It'll probably cost a fortune! D: