Patent Application
20210031101
Aspects of the present disclosure are related to game controllers. Specifically aspects of the present disclosure are related to game controller add-ons.
This application is related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, to Glenn Black, Tomas Bruckbock, and Arthur Kwun entitled “CONTROLLER ADD-ON DEVICE WITH CUSTOMIZABLE PRESETS” (Attorney Docket Number SCEA19016US00), filed the same day as the present application, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This application is related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, to Glenn Black, Tomas Bruckbock, and Jason Campbell entitled “METHOD FOR PROVIDING CUSTOMIZED BUTTON MAPPING PRE-SETS” (Attorney Docket Number SCEA19037US00), filed the same day as the present application, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This application is related to co-pending U.S. Design patent application Ser. No. ______ to So Morimoto and Arthur Kwun Entitled “CONTROLLER ADD-ON DEVICE” (Attorney Docket Number SCEA19052US00), filed the same day as the present application, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Current game controllers have many buttons that are assigned functions by an application running on a computer or a video game console. Additionally, current game controllers have multiple types of buttons that operate in various different ways to better match the role to which they are assigned by the application. For example, a controller may have joysticks, a directional pad (d-pad), shoulder buttons, touch screens, and action buttons. Despite a heavy emphasis on ergonomic design, a number of buttons on the game controller may be out of reach for the average hand while using certain functions.
Thus, there is a need in the art, for a way to add more buttons to a game controller that are within the reach of the user while using certain functions.
The teachings of the present disclosure can be readily understood by considering the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Although the following detailed description contains many specific details for the purposes of illustration, anyone of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many variations and alterations to the following details are within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the exemplary embodiments of the invention described below are set forth without any loss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, the claimed invention.
In the following Detailed Description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. In this regard, directional terminology, such as “top,” “bottom,” “front,” “back,” “leading,” “trailing,” etc., is used with reference to the orientation of the figure(s) being described. Because components of embodiments of the present invention can be positioned in a number of different orientations, the directional terminology is used for purposes of illustration and is in no way limiting. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims.
The present disclosure describes a controller add-on device configured to add additional customizable buttons to a controller.
In some embodiments a portion of the housing 101 that includes the customizable buttons 102, 103 may be coupled to the housing by way of a hinged controller interface 201, seen in
In other embodiments, display screen may be replaced by other communication elements such as a speaker connected to a printed circuit board attached to the housing by rigid attachment means. In alternative embodiments the user interface may feature a plurality of lights. In additional embodiments the user interface may comprise both a display screen and a speaker. In some embodiments the display screen is connected to a printed circuit board attached to the housing by rigid attachment means. In other additional embodiments the speaker is attached to the housing by rigid attachment means.
As seen in the top-down view of the controller add-on device in
The flow diagram of
Upon creation of a button mapping pre-set the user may select to exit the pre-set customization entry mode. The user may take the necessary action to exit the pre-set customization mode, this action is received the controller add-on device and subsequently the controller add-on device exits the pre-set customization entry mode 904. According to aspects of the present disclosure, the user may exit the pre-set customization mode by pressing an exit button or entering series of button presses or selection an option within a user interface. Alternatively, the user may exit the pre-set customization mode by refraining from pressing a button for a period. In some implementations, the exit button may be implemented using an input device, e.g., touch interface or mechanical button associated with the display screen 105.
After exiting the pre-set customization entry mode, the controller add-on device saves the pre-set or presets entered by the user 905. The pre-set or pre-sets entered by the user may be saved to a list of pre-sets stored in the memory of the controller add-on device. A very useful feature of the present disclosure is that after the pre-set entered by the user to the list of pre-sets the device may hide or otherwise makes un-selectable pre-sets that are empty, invalid or chosen to be hidden 906. This allows users to quickly switch between valid pre-sets during operation of the controller add-on device, e.g., using a button or touch interface that can be operated by the user. This mode of operation can be advantageous if the display screen and associated input device face away from the user during operation. Reducing the available modes to a relatively small number, e.g., two, makes it easy for the user to toggle between them without having to look at the screen.
By way of example and not by way limitation a pre-set button mapping may map an X-button of a game pad controller to the left button 102 and a O-button to the right button 103 of the controller add-on. When a user presses the left button 102 of the controller add-on device, the device sends a signal to the controller that the X-button has been pressed. The controller interprets this signal as though the X-button on the game pad controller has been pressed and communicates the X-button press signal to the game console.
As used herein, two objects, devices, or systems are “communicatively coupled” when information can be transmitted from one object to a second object by way of some form of signal. By way of example the signal may be an electric signal delivered through an electrically conductive interface, a mechanical signal delivered through a mechanical interface, an acoustic signal delivered through a sound-transmitting medium, or an electromagnetic signal such as a radio signal, microwave signal or a light signal, which may be delivered through a medium, such as a fiber-optic medium, a waveguide, or through free space. Communicative coupling encompasses the use of intermediary objects, devices, and systems such as transducers, transmitters, amplifiers, receivers, and signal processers, e.g., digital signal processers.
Communicative coupling is a distinct concept from mechanical connection, though the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. As a non-limiting example, communicative coupling via mechanical interface may between two objects be distinguished from mechanical connection of the two objects. For example, an actuating stud on one component may press a button on a second object when the two objects are connected by means of screws. The stud-button interaction provides mechanical communicative coupling, while the screws provide mechanical connection.
According to embodiments of the present invention, a system with a controller having a controller add-on device and method of the type described above may be implemented as depicted in
The system 1100 may also include well-known support functions 1110, such as input/output (I/O) elements 1111, power supplies (P/S) 1112, a clock (CLK) 1113 and cache 1114. The apparatus 1100 may optionally include a mass storage device 1115 such as a disk drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive, or the like to store programs and/or data. The controller may also optionally include a display unit 1116 and user interface unit 1118 to facilitate interaction between the controller 1100 and a user. The display unit 1116 may be in the form of a cathode ray tube (CRT) or flat panel screen that displays text, numerals, graphical symbols or images. The user interface 1118 may include a keyboard, mouse, joystick, light pen or other device. In addition, the user interface 1118 may include a microphone, video camera or other signal-transducing device to provide for direct capture of a signal to be analyzed. The processor 1101, memory 1102 and other components of the system 1100 may exchange signals (e.g., code instructions and data) with each other via a system bus 1120.
A microphone array 1122 may be coupled to the system 1100 through the I/O functions 1111.
An optional image capture unit 1123 (e.g., a digital camera) may be coupled to the apparatus 1100 through the I/O functions 1111. One or more pointing actuators 1125 that are mechanically coupled to the camera may exchange signals with the processor 1101 via the I/O functions 1111.
As used herein, the term I/O generally refers to any program, operation or device that transfers data to or from the system 1100 and to or from a peripheral device. Every data transfer may be regarded as an output from one device and an input into another. Peripheral devices include input-only devices, such as keyboards and mice, output-only devices, such as printers as well as devices such as a writable CD-ROM that can act as both an input and an output device. The term “peripheral device” includes external devices, such as a mouse, keyboard, printer, monitor, microphone, game controller, camera, external Zip drive or scanner as well as internal devices, such as a solid state drive (SSD), CD-ROM drive, CD-R drive or internal modem or other peripheral such as a flash memory reader/writer, hard drive.
In certain embodiments of the invention, the system 1100 may be a video game unit, which may include a controller 1130 coupled to the processor via the I/O functions 1111 either through wires (e.g., a USB cable) or wirelessly. Additionally in other embodiments, the system 1100 may be a computer system with a peripheral controller 1130. The controller 1130 may have analog joystick controls 1131 and conventional buttons 1133 that provide control signals commonly used during playing of video games. Such video games may be implemented as processor readable data and/or instructions from the program 1104, which may be stored in the memory 1102, or other processor readable medium such as one associated with the mass storage device 1015.
The controller 1130 may include one or more inertial sensors 1132, which may provide position and/or orientation information to the processor 1101 via an inertial signal. Orientation information may include angular information such as a tilt, roll or yaw of the controller 1130. By way of example, the inertial sensors 1132 may include any number and/or combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes or tilt sensors. In addition, the joystick controller 1130 may include one or more light sources 1134, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs). The light sources 1134 may be used to distinguish one controller from the other.
The processor 1101 may use inertial signals from the inertial sensors 1132 in conjunction with optical signals from light sources 1034 detected by an image capture unit to deduce information on the location and/or orientation of the controller 1030 and/or its user.
The controller add-on device 1140 couples to the controller 1130 through an interface port on the controller (not shown). The controller add-on device may communicate with the controller 1130 and the game console 1100 through I/O functions 1141, which are coupled to the communication interface. The controller add-on device may comprise a processor 1142 and memory 1143 as well as a display 1144 and a user interface 1145. The user interface may comprise a plurality buttons for example a left button a right button and a touch screen or mechanical button associated therewith. The memory 1143 may contain programs 1146 which when carried out by the processor 1142 cause the controller add-on device to enact methods for entering a button mapping pre-set 1147, e.g., as shown
In the interest of clarity, not all of the routine features of the implementations described herein are shown and described. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that in the development of any such implementations, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made in order to achieve the developer's specific goals, such as compliance with application- and business-related constraints, and that these specific goals will vary from one implementation to another and from one developer to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of engineering for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure.
In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the components, process steps, and/or data structures may be implemented using various types of operating systems; computing platforms; user interfaces/displays, including personal or laptop computers, video game consoles, PDAs and other handheld devices, such as cellular telephones, tablet computers, portable gaming devices; and/or general purpose machines. In addition, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that devices of a less general purpose nature, such as hardwired devices, field programmable gate arrays (FOGs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or the like, may also be used without departing from the scope and spirit of the inventive concepts disclosed herein.
While the above is a complete description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention, it is possible to use various alternatives, modifications, and equivalents. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should be determined not with reference to the above description but should, instead, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with their full scope of equivalents. Any feature, whether preferred or not, may be combined with any other feature, whether preferred or not. In the claims that follow, the indefinite article “A” or “An” refers to a quantity of one or more of the item following the article, except where expressly stated otherwise. The appended claims are not to be interpreted as including means-plus-function limitations, unless such a limitation is explicitly recited in a given claim using the phrase “means for”. Any element in a claim that does not explicitly state “means for” performing a specified function, is not to be interpreted as a “means” or “step” clause as specified in 35 USC § 112, ¶6.
