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]
