US 6,955,606 to Nintendo

US 6,955,606, entitled "Game information storage medium and game system using the same," has first claim

A game information storage medium utilized for a first game machine having a first architecture, comprising:

at least one game program for a second game machine having a second architecture different from the first architecture of the first game machine, said game program having a game title;

at least one emulator program which emulates the second game machine in the first game machine to thereby render the game program executable on the first game machine, said emulator program being associated to the game title of the game program; and

a game selection program for the first game machine and for displaying information indicative of a game title of the game program to be selected by a player, wherein when

the game information storage medium is utilized on the first game machine, the game selection program is executed to permit a player to select a game title, and, upon selection of the game title, the game program corresponding to the selected game title is automatically executed using the emulator program as a result of the association between the game title and the emulator program;

and further wherein emulated and converted instructions generated during execution of the game program using the emulator program are temporarily stored in a memory of the first game machine for a predetermined period of time after a game-over condition results during execution of the game program using the emulator program, wherein the emulator program includes a replay program that enables the temporarily stored instructions to be executed again at the option of a user of said game information storage medium within said predetermined period of time after said game-over condition;

and further including graphics image data for one or more different game characters that may be graphically displayed during gameplay;

a game character graphics image display/selection program which displays the respective graphics image data of game characters prior to the execution of a selected game program so as to prompt a player to select a desired character out of the displayed characters; and

a data replacement program which replaces the particular one or more game character graphics image data read-out by the emulator program with game character graphics image data of a particular game character that has been selected by the player,

wherein said one or more different game characters include characters that are not available for selection in the game program itself.

Priority is claimed only to a provisional application: This Application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional No. 60/206,977, filed May 25, 2000. The law firm was Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.


One discussion: The patent in question is rather long-winded, but a summary of the key points and how they could relate to Virtual Console have been provided below:

* The patent refers to a series of emulator programs, meaning that should this patent refer to Virtual Console, the "first game machine" (which we assume refers to Revolution) has no dedicated hardware for Virtual Console titles. (Figure 4)