Tech

Microsoft Patents Drop-In Co-Op In Shooters

Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office assigned Microsoft, the publisher of such games as Gears of War, the ability to offer seamless switching from solo to co-op campaigns within squad-based shooter video games. You really have to patent such a thing?

Anyway, the patent, #7,559,834, was originally owned, and invented, by James York of Texas – Austin, Texas to be more exact. And was filed back in December of 2002. However, nearly a decade later, this is what Microsoft gains access to:

A squad-based shooter video game allows players to dynamically join and leave the game, while that game is in progress, without the players having to save and restart the game. When a new player joins an in-progress game, a new squad member is allocated to the new player and the screen is split to present a viewing panel for the new player that depicts scenes from the perspective of the new squad member. When an existing player leaves the game, the screen is unsplit to remove the viewing panel for the exiting player and that player’s squad member becomes part of the squad being controlled by the remaining player(s).

The patent came filled with co-op game sketches (one shown above). Anyway, the one shown above resembles a screenshot from the original Xbox co-op shooter Brute Force, developed by the now non-existent Digital Anvil. So for what reason would Microsoft patent this? With Natal’s release coming upon us, who knows what they are planning.

[Microsoft Patents Drop-In Co-Op In Shooters via Kotaku]

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