Looking for a little more rumble in your Rabbids? A little shimmy in your Scribblenauts? That could become a reality. Nintendo has applied for a patent that incorporates rumble into your hand held experience, but not the way you think. Instead of feeling a tremor or vibration in the hand held system itself, the new method would send feedback to the player through the stylus. From the patent description:
A game apparatus includes an LCD, and a touch panel is placed on a top surface of the LCD. A player instructs an enemy character displayed on the LCD by use of a stick to attack the enemy character. For example, in a case that the enemy character exists at a depth of a game screen, little damage is applied to the enemy character, and a weak vibration is applied to the game apparatus. Conversely, in a case that the enemy character exists at a front of the game screen, much damage is applied to the character, and a strong vibration is applied to the game apparatus. In either case, the vibrations are transmitted to the fingers or hands of the payer via the stick.
While N-Europe rightly points out that this could be just another patent that gets lost in a drawer at Nintendo somewhere, I for one am hopeful. With the focus on the stylus instead of the hand held console itself, our chances of seeing rumble for the DS or DSi seem to be greater. Also, a vibrating stylus sounds better than having both my hands numb from the vibration emitted by the entire device. What say you? Would you like to see rumble incorporated into your current gen hand held?
