A new Nintendo patent has surfaced online, and it suggests Nintendo is preparing to add Xbox Series X’s biggest feature to the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch OLED, though it’s unclear how. One big advantage the Xbox Series X has over the PS5 is Quick Resume, which allows Xbox Series X users to suspend their game states to quickly switch between different games, on the fly, without any pause screens or reboot screens. The aforementioned Nintendo patent — dubbed “Game Apparatus, Computer-Readable Non-Transitory Storage Medium Having Information Processing Program Stored Therein, And Information Processing Method” — isn’t an exact replication of this feature, but it’s very similar.
According to the patent, which is brimming with technical jargon, Nintendo is working on a technology that would allow users to replicate this exact process, but with a start screen in the middle of the process. In other words, it’s working on a watered-down Quick Resume.
I”n a game apparatus in which game programs for a plurality of games each including a title scene and a play scene are stored in a storage medium, a game to be executed is switched in a predetermined order by a user operating a first input device,” reads the patent’s abstract. “At a time of the switching, in the case where a currently executed game is in the play scene, the game is interrupted and switching is performed to another game, and, when the game is executed again later, the game is restarted from the time of the interruption of the play scene, and a first image showing the game is displayed on a display. Meanwhile, in the case where the currently executed game is in the title scene, switching is performed to another game, and then when the game is executed again, the game is restarted from the title scene without displaying the first image.”
Of course, it’s possible nothing will come of this patent. In fact, this happens quite often with patents. Further, even if this technology is realized in an actual Nintendo product, it’s possible it won’t be via the Nintendo Switch, but its successor or the long-rumored Nintendo Switch Pro, as it’s unclear how a standard Nintendo Switch could pull any of this off without an SSD.
At the moment of publishing, Nintendo has not commented on the patent nor the speculation it has created. We don’t expect this to change, but if it does, we will be sure to update the story accoridnly.
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