Another Mysterious Nintendo Patent Discovered

Every now and then a patent for a weird new Nintendo device turns up in the US Patent Application database. The last one to be found was speculated to be for the NX, and suggested the console would not run games from discs. Now a new one has turned up, and this time, there’s little guessing what it’s supposed to be.

It’s a Gamepad, with a giant screen. This implies Nintendo intends to continue putting screens into their controllers when the NX comes out. Hopefully they find a way to reduce the cost of this.

See what the finger is doing? The drawing is depicting new technology that senses movement outside of the Gamepad itself. The drawing shown in the featured image depicts an amiibo being read by one of these remote sensors, without having to place it on the pad.

It”s also possible the device could be a new handheld, but several factors stand in the way of that: for one, these days, Nintendo wouldn’t release a handheld without a second screen. Another, there are too few buttons on it, though this is probably for illustrative purposes (it’s got too few buttons for a Wii U controller as well).

These patents are being brought to light thanks to Nintendo Life, which has also recently found patent designs for a Gamepad with scrolling wheel buttons and another with haptic feedback sensors. In each example, the Gamepad looks different.