This Might Have Something to do with the 10NES Patent?

I haven't had a chance to look at the actual patent yet, but I'm curious about this one. Nintendo has primarily patented things as a means of protecting content delivery. I wouldn't be surprised if this has something to do with that. Because the Wii is going to support Nintendo's old library of games (and from the sound of it Sega's too), then they're going to need a good way to do it. Because they don't want people beaming ROM's into the Wii, but buying their online ROM's, you get this.

I'll have a deeper look. The patent to which this baby is referencing is 6,672,963. It's title is, "Software implementation of a handheld video game hardware platform." It specifically references GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advance on low-capability target platforms. This would mean specifically non-PC targets. So emulating the GB, GBC, and GBA on things like cell phones, iPods, etc. I also did a quick search on Nintendo as the assignee for patents. Pretty interesting. Wonder about Sony and Microsoft. I'll let you figure out who's winning the patent battle.

Wired News: EFF Publishes Patent Hit List

8. Nintendo's video-game emulator patent. The entertainment powerhouse has patented the technology for emulating its old games, something Schultz said used to be allowable under the fair-use doctrine. "A bunch of small game companies are writing these emulators, and they're really no threat to Nintendo," said Schultz. "But Nintendo is being a big bully."