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?

N-Europe

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Again with the awesome styluses (styli?) that we don’t get to have.

This transparent quill style stylus is a promotional item for the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks release December 7th (23rd here in the States). As some of you may notice, its the same one from the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass release two years ago. They’re being distributed on launch day as an “early buyer bonus” to our friends overseas.

Just another chapter in the “Japan gets all the best stuff” saga. Big sigh.

AndriaSang
via Joystiq

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