Patent Application
20060287081
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-136901 filed on May 10, 2005 in the Japanese Patent Office; the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a volume control system for adjusting the volume of a plurality of gaming machines, a management server and a gaming machine that can be used for this kind of volume control system, and a volume control method for adjusting the volume of a plurality of such gaming machines.
2. Description of Related Art
In conventional technology, a system for adjusting the volume in a gaming machine is a game system including a host device and a plurality of game devices in which screen brightness and volume in the gaming machine is adjusted based on time (e.g. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-135377).
With such a gaming system as the host device detects the current time and date and based on the time and date thus detected, data for the playing of each game by the player at each game device is forwarded to each game device in conformance with a predetermined assignment.
The assignment of a game for a game device is changed in coordination with the time zone, the date and the line of flow of the player, further, games that are meant for adults are controlled so as to only be played at night.
Further, this host device sets the screen brightness and volume of the audio for a game for each game device, this volume and brightness being changed in coordination with the time zone and date.
That is to say, with this kind of game system a manager sets scheduling data in advance that shows how this assignment should be made for each time and each date. At the host computer the current time and date is detected and the screen brightness and audio volume of a game for each game device are changed based on the time and date as detected and on the scheduling data.
With such a game system as this however, the volume of the game sounds for each game device is adjusted in accordance with the schedule preset by the manager regardless of the number of players playing the game at the same time. Accordingly, if the number of players playing a game at the same time increases, the total of the volume from the game audio increases, leading to complaints from players such as “the audio coming from game sounds around me was too noisy, so I couldn't even hear the sounds coming out of the game device I was playing”, thereby reducing the enjoyment experienced by players at each different game device.
The issues broached by this invention are accordingly, to provide a volume adjustment system that can adjust the sound coming from gaming machine in response to the condition of games occurring on a plurality of gaming machines, to provide a management server that can be applied for such a gaming system, a gaming machine and a volume adjustment method that can be used to adjust the sound on a plurality of these gaming machines.
According to a first aspect, the present invention is a volume adjustment system (e.g. volume adjustment system 1) in which a management server (e.g. management server 2) is connected to a plurality of gaming machines (e.g. gaming machines 11-30) via a network (e.g. network 3), wherein the management server provides investigating unit (e.g. investigating unit 21) for investigating the operating condition of each gaming machine, calculating unit (e.g. calculating unit 26) for calculating the operating ratio based on the results of the investigation provided by the investigating unit, and transmission unit (e.g. transmission unit 31) for sending commands to each gaming machine providing instructions that make the sound coming from each gaming machine conform to the operating ratio calculated by the calculating unit, and each gaming machine provides sound output unit (e.g. sound amp/speakers 46) for outputting sound, volume adjustment unit (e.g. sound circuit 44) for adjusting the volume of sound output from the sound output unit and control unit (e.g. CPU 41) for operating the volume adjustment unit based on the commands from the management server.
In this application, “are connected” unit not only a wired connection but includes also a wireless connection and “operating condition” unit both operating and not operating, where for example a video game or demo performance is operating if it is being run and is determined as not operating if it is not being run.
According to a second aspect, the present invention is a management server capable of sending requests or commands to a plurality of gaming machines and of receiving reports back from each of the gaming machines, this management server providing investigating unit that investigates the operating condition of each of the gaming machines by sending a request for an operating condition report to each of the gaming machines and receiving an operating report showing that the gaming machine is operating from each of the gaming machines; calculating unit that receives an operating report from the investigating unit and outputs a value as the operating ratio, derived by dividing the total number of operating reports by the total number of the gaming machines; and transmission unit that receives the operating ratio from the calculating unit, determines the volume in relation to the operating ratio from the operating ratio/volume relationship stored in advance and sends a command to each of the gaming machines with an instruction to adjust the volume output from the gaming machines such that that volume corresponds to the operating ratio.
According to a third aspect, the present invention is a gaming machine capable of receiving a command or request from a management server and sending a report to the management server, this gaming machine providing audio output unit for outputting sound; volume adjustment unit for adjusting the volume of sound output from the audio output unit; and control unit for sending a reply to the management server indicating whether or not the gaming machine itself is operating once a request for an operating condition report is received from the management server and controlling the volume adjustment unit in compliance with the volume adjustment command once a volume adjustment command has been received from the management server.
According to a fourth aspect, the present invention is a volume adjustment method for adjusting the volume of a plurality of gaming machines connected via a network to a management server, this method comprising an investigation step (such as S11) by which the management server investigates the operating condition of each gaming machine via the network; a calculation step (such as S12), by which the management server calculates the operating ratio as it applies to all the gaming machines, based on the results of the investigation conducted at the investigation step; a volume adjustment command transmission step (such as S13), by which the management server sends to all of the gaming machines a volume adjustment command instructing adjustment of volume to the volume coordinated to the operating ratio; and a volume adjustment step by which each gaming machine that receives the volume adjustment command adjusts the volume output in coordination to the operating ratio.
The embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.
For each of these gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , and N it is a condition for the commencement of a game that a coin be inserted. Each of these gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , and N can play videogames such as slot machine games, poker, blackjack, roulette or the like. The internal configuration of the first gaming machine 11 will now be described. The second gaming machine 12, . . . , and n gaming machine N have the same internal configuration as this first gaming machine 11.
The ROM 42 stores control programs for each kind of videogame, performance screen/performance sound data, rule explanation documents and also, other control programs. An operating part 49, inserted-coin sensor 50 and communication circuit 51 are connected to the CPU 41 via the I/F 48. The communication circuit 51 is connected to a network 3. The CPU 41 maintains the required work area in the RAM 43 when a control program stored in the ROM 42 is run, and executes each kind of videogame based on the control signals from the control part 49, the inserted-coin sensor 50 and the communication circuit 51.
Further, the CPU 41 controls sound amp/speakers 46 via a sound circuit 44, and can output performance sound for each kind of videogame from the sound amp/speakers 46. The volume of sound output from the sound amp/speakers 46 can be adjusted by control instructions from the sound circuit 44. Further, the CPU 41 controls a display device 47 via a graphic display circuit 45 and can output performance screens of each kind of videogame on the display device 47.
Moreover, the CPU 41 is connected to the network 3 via the communication circuit 51 connected to the I/F 48. As shown in
Each kind of table and control program corresponding to instructions of the management server 2, these being related to the volume adjustment method described subsequently, are stored in the ROM 42.
The investigating unit 21 includes an operating condition report request part 22 that requests a report on the operating condition of each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N and an operating condition determining part 23 that determines the operating condition of each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N based on the content of the report sent from those gaming machines. The operating condition report request part 22 sends the operating condition report request to each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N a via a communication circuit 36 and the network 3.
The calculating unit 26 has a calculation operation storage part 27 storing in advance the formula for calculating operating ratio, and a calculation execution part 28 that reads this calculation operation out, and performs the calculation using the calculation operation thus read. The following calculation formula is stored in the calculation operation storage part 27:
operating ratio=(number of gaming machines determined as currently operating)/total number of gaming machines×100
The volume adjustment command transmission unit 31 has an operating ratio/volume relationship storage part 32, that stores a relationship of correspondence between operating ratio and volume in advance and a volume read part 33 that reads the volume corresponding to the operating ratio from that operating ratio/volume relationship. This volume read part 33 sends to each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N via the communication circuit 36 and the network 3, a command for the performance of a volume adjustment such that the volume output from each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N is adjusted to become the volume corresponding to the operating ratio.
The volume adjustment method performed by the volume adjustment system 1 according to this embodiment will now be described. According to this volume adjustment method the volume from each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N is adjusted in response to commands from the management server 2.
In the relationship diagram shown in
In
The relationship diagram shown in
For example the relationship of the levels may be such that when the operating ratio is above 0% and not more than 25%, the volume is 7, when the operating ratio is not less than 25% and not more than 50% the volume is 6, when the operating ratio is not less than 50% and not more than 75% the volume is 5 and when the operating ratio is not less than 75% up to 100% the volume is 4.
At S12 the management server 2 calculates the operating ratio. Basically, this unit obtaining the operating ratio in a percentage unit by multiplying by 100 the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of machines among each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N to which a signal was sent at S11 and which then sent a signal indicating that they are currently operating, by the total number of gaming machines.
At S13 a volume adjustment command is sent from the management server 2 to each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N. This volume adjustment command instructs that the volume from each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N must be the volume corresponding to the operating ratio.
At S14 each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N adjusts the volume output from itself to become the volume corresponding to the operating ratio. The gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N receive the volume adjustment command from the management server 2 via the network 3 and then the CPU 41 controls the sound circuit 44 such that the volume (that is to say the volume corresponding to the operating ratio) included in the volume adjustment command is the volume output from the sound amp/speakers 46.
As described in detail above, with this volume adjustment system 1, when the volume adjustment process shown in
Based on the result of the investigation into the operating condition of each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N, the management server 2 obtains the volume corresponding to the operating ratio from the relationship diagram of
In this way, if the operating ratio becomes high, the volume output from each of the gaming machines can be lowered such that even when the majority of the gaming machines are operating, a situation in which the sound being output from surrounding gaming machines becomes noisy making it difficult to hear the sound being output from a particular gaming machine is able to be avoided.
Note that the present invention is not intended to be limited by the above description of an embodiment. Various other modifications will be apparent to and can be readily made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention.
For example, in the volume adjustment system 1 of this embodiment the operating ratio of each of the gaming machines 11, 12, . . . , N is obtained, then the volume representing the one-to-one correspondence of the operating ratio so obtained is requested using the relational diagram of
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| P2005-136901 | May 2005 | JP | national |
