Nintendo Has Been Granted A Patent For Game Boy Emulation… Again?

Nintendo is, arguably, sitting on a goldmine of older games for platforms like the Game Boy. The problem is getting those games onto modern devices. In addition to companies such as Apple being less than keen about emulators running on their hardware, Nintendo has been reluctant to go down this path anyway. That mindset may be changing however.

Spotted by “Rösti”, a forum user over at NeoGAF, Nintendo was recently granted a patent by the USPTO entitled “HAND-HELD VIDEO GAME PLATFORM EMULATION”.

Neither the title, nor the summary, leave much to the imagination:

A software emulator for emulating a handheld video game platform such as GAME BOY.RTM., GAME BOY COLOR.RTM. and/or GAME BOY ADVANCE.RTM. on a low-capability target platform (e.g., a seat-back display for airline or train use, a personal digital assistant, a cell phone) uses a number of features and optimizations to provide high quality graphics and sound that nearly duplicates the game playing experience on the native platform.

The patent itself was filed in June of this year, though it has some history before then… quite a bit, actually. The patent, in a different form, popped up in 2012, with an original filing date of 2003. In any case, Nintendo hasn’t done much with it.

So, you can understand why getting excited about the possibility of official Game Boy emulators appearing in every device ever might be premature. That said, it seems like a financial no-brainer for the company, if it can figure out the best way to go about it.

HAND-HELD VIDEO GAME PLATFORM EMULATION [USPTO, via NeoGAF]


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