The big thing in gaming in the last few years has been making them ‘immersive’- so we touch our games via touch screens, we have force feedback in our controllers, we move our arms and legs to move our characters in games via motion controllers, cameras scan us into the games, we speak to our games using voice input, we stand on peripherals that detect our balance and orientation, and virtual reality promises to fully put us in the world of our video games.

Before that happens, however, we’ll continue to get piecemeal peripherals that try to replicate that sense of immersion. And some of them sound creepy.

Take, for example, this newest sensor that Eurogamer reports (thanks to some detective work over on the part of the trusty folks on NeoGAF) Sony has patented: it is a sensor for your mouth that detects the changing chemical makeup of your saliva.

The miniature sensor fits behind your two front teeth and detects the levels of enzymes and hormones, detecting your emotional state. To be specific, the patent says:

“Emotion recognition or understanding the mood of the user is important and beneficial for many applications; including games, man-machine interface etc.,” the patent states. “Emotion recognition is a challenging task due to the nature of the complexity of human emotion; hence automatic emotion recognition accuracy is very low.”

So this sounds like something patented with the purpose of being used in video game software. And that’s just disturbing.

Of course, it is to be remembered that companies file thousands of patents a year, and a minuscule amount of them ever actually come to pass. Still, this one is just bizarre, and freaks me out.

The patent calls the controller a “hybrid separable motion controller.”

The patent mentions some other features that the controller has, such as gyroscopes, a speaker, a magnetometer, accelerometers, vibration feedback and a touch pad. Not to mention all the regular buttons. It also looks like the controller needs a camera to detect it, and the game that is running knows whether or not the controller is split in two and then ask the user to adjust the setup accordingly.

The patent also shows a Cell/RSX configuration on one slide.

It looks like Sony might be planning to make this the main controller for the PS4, because it would be a little foolish to introduce another controller for the PS3 at this point in the generation, and it already has the PS Move, the Sixaxis and the Dualshock 3 to run on right now.

With Nintendo innovating with the Wii U’s GamePad, and Microsoft also clearly planning something for the Kinect in the future with the next Xbox, Sony must be thinking about a new way to play games too. They did conceive the PS Move with a long term plan, and using it in such a way for the PS4 would make a lot of sense. This does provide a lot of room for innovation, and to us, it looks like a pretty neat idea.

But then again, it’s just a patent right now, and we never know if it’ll even come into use. Let’s hope for the best.

What do you guys think about this? Tell us in you comments.

Have a look at other images from the patent to get a better idea of the controller below (click to view full size):

[Patent PDF]

Technology firm ThinkOptic have sued Nintendo for having knowingly infringed on one of their patents (allegedly).

ThinkOptic’s patent describes an “electronic equipment for handheld vision based absolute pointing system”. They claim Nintendo know, or should have known, that they were indeed infringing the other firm’s patent.

Other two patents in this case describe a “Handheld Device for Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System” and another describes a “Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System”.

And with that in mind, ThinkOptic has claimed the Wii U is also infringing upon their patents.

Seems like Nintendo’s not having a good time. Recently, a report claimed that Sony too patented a Wii U like technology, however, they did not sue Nintendo over it.

Nintendo has filed a US patent application that the company is interested in creating a “Masively Single-Player Online Game.” Don’t ask us, we have no idea what the hell that is.

According to the patent, the player’s actions in the game impact environments and characters in other players’ games providing “dynamic, not-based on Al and not-pre-scripted like multiplayer games” for all those who don’t “want to ‘deal’ with other people, [and] appreciate the privacy it provides.”

For example, the economy of one game would be affected if the resources in another game are scarce and so on, and players could contact, or “gossip” with, NPCs and talk to them about what is going in other games, and the NPCs would then pass on the players’  information to other games.

It was filed for “a home video game system such as the Nintendo Wii 3D video game system, a Nintendo DS or other 3D capable interactive computer graphics display systems.”

We have no idea what the hell is going on, but we’ll keep you updated as more info comes are way.

They have signed a cross licensing deal.

“LG and Sony recently agreed to drop patent infringement lawsuits against each other,” a spokeswoman at South Korea’s LG Electronics said.

Both companies were involved in a bitter patent battle which led LG to confiscate PS3 shipments to EU. Sony had started the patent dispute by filing a complaint against LG with the US Trade commission to block its smartphones to the US.

LG had an issue with PS3 Blu-Ray technology and hit back at Sony. The dispute is now resolved.

Thanks, Reuters.

Sony won their case against LG, protesting the seizure of 300,000 PS3s by the group.

The order enables Sony to retrieve all 300,000 consoles aswell as get €130,000 in legal fees from LG.

LG has also been instructed to return all consoles to Sony by tomorrow and any delay would result in a additional fine of 200,000 euros per day.

This judgement only applies to the the recent seizure of consoles by LG and the case about patent infringement would continue at a later date.

Thanks, Insidegamer.

The patent, which appears to show a PS3 controller hooked up with a PSP, will look to correct many aching hands and sore thumbs by using a console controller for the portable system.

While it looks a tad unwieldy, and most definitely less portable than a regular PSP, it’s a step in the right direction to make many gamers return to Tekken or Worms on the Sony portable.

While the PSPGo already has the option to connect other controllers to it, this patent suggests the feature will be making its way to the other PSP editions. Judging by the image, it looks like the PS3 controller will either be attached directly, or with a hinge.

Most interestingly though, this hints at the option to use a second thumbstick- the most craved feature by fans since the PSP was created.