Nintendo Patent Applications Discovered For Handheld Device Featuring Gesture Recognition

An eagle-eyed NeoGAF user has unearthed some patent applications revealing what the future may hold one day for handheld Nintendo devices.

Filed in September 2014 at the patent office in Japan, the patent applications largely have to do with the detection of objects and users’ hands. Further more, details of the patent filings would suggest that these features would also support the ability to trigger sound output or vibration at a distance, allowing the device to detect and respond to gestures. Yes that’s right, one day your 3DS might be able to tell when you’re flipping it off.

A basic summary of the contents includes the design of an infrared camera and distance sensor and plans for distance measuring and gesture recognition. While this does not spell out for certain what the next Nintendo 3DS model or Nintendo NX might be capable of, at the very least it illustrates what’s going on in Nintendo’s head as they further hone technology for their next generation of hardware.

The full diagrams and figures from the filling can be seen in full over at the thread in the NeoGAF forums, where you can also see Nintendo’s evil plans to build a mind control device to take over the world:

Do you think this has any bearing on Nintendo NX and Nintendo handhelds, or is this just another one of Nintendo’s many ambitious but ultimately unused patents?

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