US Patent and Trademark Office regulates drop-in/drop-out system
Microsoft has reportedly registered a patent for a drop-in/drop-out feature in an online co-op shooter.
The application was made to the United States Patent and Trademark Office during the reign of the original Xbox in December 2002, according to Kotaku.
The patent has now been approved, and refers to: “A squad-based shooter video games that 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.”
A similar system debuted in Microsoft’s Fable II in October last year. The references to “a squad-based shooter” have sparked speculation that the feature will appear in the next Gears Of War title.
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patent
From one of the other articles on this subject, it's clear that the the original patent was filed back in 2002 for Brute Force. So this was filed before there even was a concpet of Gears of War and has just now cleared. There is also no specific mention of online from what I read, it seems more to do with split screen.
Patent
"Microsoft patents "online" FPS co-op" Think its online lol! Good move by MS if correct mind!
what the hell?
How can you patent such a feature?
This kind of gameplay has been present for a number of years in a variety of game formats. It just isn't unique in the slightest and because of that shouldn't be patentable!
This kind of gameplay was available on a game called "Project Eden" a 4 player co-op game which allowed you to drop in/drop out at any time, oh, and it was a shooter.
In the above text it doesn't actually mention it being online either.
If you're wondering why I'm annoyed at this, it's simple. Now, because of microsoft, no-one else can do this without paying them. People don't want to pay a third party to produce their game, so it's likely that this will kill innovations in this area.
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