Nintendo patents new portable

The latest video game-related patent to turn up at the US patent office shows images of a portable console--looking not unlike an original Game Boy -- which detects when it is moved or tilted.

The motion-sensing handheld patent was filed on March 30, (published on the Web site on August 2) and explains the handheld's new controller system, "Simulation refers to game control for analogously representing a change caused in the actual space in a form of a game-space state change, based on at least one of an amount and a direction of a tilt, movement or impact applied to the housing."

It continues, "Game control includes the case of simulation on a state change of the game space itself and the case of simulation of an indirect effect upon another object caused due to a change in state of the game space."

The patent comes with 75 pages of drawings showing how the portable could register movement from left to right, tilt, and some kind of "impact" on the case.

Nintendo's official comment is, "We file hundreds of patents every year -- this is just one of them."