Hot off the heels of the rotary shoulder button patent that Nintendo filed earlier this year, it looks like we have another that’s once again filed in the creator’s name, rather than as Nintendo. This patent application assignee was Fumihiko Inoue, who has been the assignee for other Nintendo patents as well.
Unlike the rotary shoulder buttons that were easy to understand the application, this patent is a bit more abstract. The description is pretty generic as well.
An example system includes a housing having at least one surface provided with a display, a linear image sensor located, facing outside the housing, at a side part or a corner part of the housing when the surface provided with the display is viewed as a front surface, and an information processing unit performing information processing based on an image obtained by the linear image sensor.
The best example of the patent seems to be for reading amiibo, though current amiibo don’t have any barcodes like what is shown in the image below.
The patent was originally filed back in February, so it’s possible if this technology is planned for the NX in some capacity, we could see a change in how amiibo are designed. Either way, it’s best not to get your hopes up too much, since many of these patent applications won’t see the light of day in consumer products.
What do you think the image sensor could be used for?
