Update: the patent was approved today, even though it was filed in December of 2000, before the original Eternal Darkness was released (talk about expedient processing). Sorry to get anyone's hopes up, and thank everyone for pointing that out.

As September 16th gets nearer and more people look to the Tokyo Games Show for information on the Revolution, I imagined that crazier rumors would be spread in regards to the "secrets" that Nintendo is holding. However, when the craziest of ideas comes from the U.S. Patent Office, I am slightly taken aback. Patent 6,935,954  gives Nintendo full rights to a "Sanity system for a video game…and game system." Essentially, it describes the sanity system from Eternal Darkness. In fact, one of the inventors of the Sanity System, Dennis Dyack, is the head of Silicon Knights, which created the game. Does this mean we might see a sequel to Eternal Darkness? Maybe so, at least now Nintendo has an option.

As for the "game system" aspect of the patent, I would not put too much emphasis on that. Maybe one feature of the Revolution controller is grips that detect your pulse – which would be very cool, indeed, and Reggie did say that the "revolutionary" aspect was a pre-existing technology that has not been used in video games. Still, I would not hold my breath on that.

Since the idea of Resident Evil 5 on the Revolution seems hopeful at best, another Eternal Darkness (or a spiritual successor, at least) would give the console some mature credibility. The sanity system in Eternal Darkness was fun – I remember going insane just to see what all you could do.

[Thanks, bandersnatch]