Nintendo Patents Watch

Updated KPIs¹ in today’s Management Policy Briefing, compared to past data:

• Annual Playing Users stopped declining and stayed flat at 128M (comparing img 1 to img 2)
• Nintendo Accounts +34M YoY (img 3; indicating Switch user churn and/or mobile user growth)
• NSO Members stayed flat too (img 4)

Considering that 2025 is a cross-gen year, the numbers above aren’t too shabby. The logarithmic NS1-to-NS2 adoption curve and 16% new users share (image below) also suggest that the migration is off to a smooth start.

1. As of 2025-09-30 ↩︎

[Originally posted on 2025-11-04 Pacific Time]

In case some are wondering why I had no patent posts for a week: There were only some patent continuations/divisions that aren’t new, and one Mario Party patent that I didn’t find interesting enough to write. But here’s a peak at the patent if you’re hungry for it …

[Originally posted on 2025-11-04 Pacific Time]

During Nintendo’s conference for fiscal Q2 results, Furukawa stated that Nintendo wants “as many people as possible” to get a Switch 2 during the year-end shopping season, aiming to sell above the forecast (19M units). Since the company has expanded capacity post NS2 launch, “production won’t be a bottleneck”. Regarding the US tariffs, Furukawa reiterated that Nintendo expects an impact of “tens of billions of yen” at the profit level.

tl;dr: Despite the revised 19M units forecast, which many considered conservative, Furakawa opening said that Nintendo is aiming to sell more than that, and has readied the production capacity.

Sources: Reuters Japan, Asahi Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, and NHK News

[Originally posted on 2025-11-04 Pacific Time]

Remember all the breathless reporting of Nintendo “banning” RTA in Japan (speedrunning event) from using Nintendo games? That was demonstrably untrue.

RTA in Japan just unveiled their Winter 2025 lineup, and 30 selected entries are Nintendo games. As I shared at the time, RTA in Japan chose to exclude Nintendo games only for Summer 2025 due to license timing, but will accept them in later events.

One has to ask why such a gross mistranslation was gleefully disseminated without so much as checking the source?

[Originally posted on 2025-11-02 Pacific Time]

Alps Alpine (アルプスアルパイン), supplier of HD Rumble actuators and analog sticks, revised upward their financial forecast for the FY ending 2026-03 (img 1; source). One of the reasons for the revision is “an increase in sales”, including “growing demand for game consoles” (img 2; source).

Alps Alpine is yet another Switch 2 supplier disclosing increased component demands. See previous reports here.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-31 Pacific Time]

A follow-up to my previous post about TOSE’s Switch 2 business:

It appears that one of those in-development¹ TOSE projects w/ added Switch 2 support may be Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake.

1. As of 2025-08-31 ↩︎

[Originally posted on 2025-10-30 Pacific Time]

Macronix’s (旺宏; NS1 Game Card supplier) Q3 financial report indicates that the company is still unable to produce NS2 Game Cards.

• Their 2025Q3 ROM shipment was barely higher than 2024Q3. Without Pokémon Z-A, the number probably would’ve cratered.

• During the conference call, the Chairman of Macronix disclosed that:

尤其新的機種裡面，我們還一些研發的工作還沒有完成。 […] 我們希望明年以後會慢慢的在 pick up。
Regarding the new console specifically, some of our R&D work is still incomplete. […] We expect [ROM business] to gradually pick up starting next year.

As I shared last quarter, there are evidences suggesting that Macronix and their partner MegaChips (メガチップス) plan to utilize high-density 3D NAND in Game Cards to lower costs. The latest disclosure signals that it isn’t going well.

Currently Game Card 2 is only made by Rohm and an unidentified company. Macronix’s inability to ship perhaps results in low supply. To make things worse, the memory market is in a “super cycle”, with NAND price steadily increasing with no end in sight.

So it seems, unfortunately, that there will be no relief for the NS2 Game Card cost for the time being.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-29 Pacific Time]

The complete version of The Binding of Isaac is $51 on Steam. The NS2 physical is $19 more ($70).

The early access version of Pastry Panic (a.k.a. Turn the Line) is $14 on Steam. If the full release doubles the price to $28, the NS2 physical is $22 more ($50).

Hades II physical and Yooka Replaylee physical are ~$20 more too. It seems that some indies choose Game Card over Game-Key Card because they can pass the cost of GC to physical collectors.

AAA games that already start at $70 can’t do the same without pushing the physical price to ~$90, hence using GKC. Interesting to see if this dichotomy persists going forward.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-28 Pacific Time]

Honcam (弘德隆) is developing an Arcade Dock + Stick for Switch 2 (NS1 compatible). It’s now on a Japanese crowdfunding site, and has a placeholder page on Amazon US. ETA is Jan 2026.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-28 Pacific Time]

When in mouse mode, the player may lift up the Joy-Con momentarily before putting it back down (e.g., playing Drag x Drive). The grounding impact can jerk the cursor and result in undesirable movements in game.

To suppress this, Joy-Con tracks its grounding status, initial velocity (right after grounded), and current velocity.

When grounding occurs, the initial/subsequent velocity, moving direction, and timing of action are checked. If these readings are deemed too jerky, motion sensor data is used to correct the cursor movement.

[Regarding the grounding flag] Aside from some high-end gaming mouse, traditional mouse don’t know if they are grounded or lifted. Joy-Con 2 on the other hand needs the data point. This is achieved by tracking the “image clarity” detected by its mouse sensor (image 1 above). When it’s clear, the Joy-Con must be close to a surface.

Patent link: JP2025163172

[Originally posted on 2025-10-27 Pacific Time]

A patent trio for GameChat have been published by JPO today. I’ll touch on only a few key points below. Please refer to the source docs for more info.

a. Switch 2 GameChat is facilitated by two types of servers:

• Management servers identify and connect users to form chat groups
• Transmission servers receive and relay video streams within a chat group

b. The transmitting Switch sends the camera video (143 in image 1 below)—plus an image mask (153) for user headshot—to the receiving Switches. Using the mask, a receiving Switch can display the user video w/o the background (A in image 2), cropped (B), as is (C), or w/ the background blurred (D).

c. Since the camera video may be magnified (A & B in image 1 below), its zoom factor is also sent from the transmitter to receivers. When the zoom factor is too high (B; low image quality), a “[user] too far away” message is shown on the receiving Switch (image 2).

d. If the user isn’t in frame (C in image 1 below) or disables camera streaming (D), a “muted” image is transmitted instead of camera. On the receiver, a “face not visible” or “streaming disallowed” message is shown (images 2-3). Either the muted image (imege 2) or user initial (image 3) can be used as the avatar.

e. The receiver may be set up to not show any camera feeds (e.g. parental control). Compared to an unrestricted unit (image 1 below), the restricted unit (image 2) hides camera feeds (156-3 & 156-4) and blocks gameplay streams with embedded camera images (150-4). Instead of blocking, other treatments are also possible (image 3).

Patent links: JP2025162493, JP2025162494, JP2025162496

[Originally posted on 2025-10-27 Pacific Time]

In the recent financial results briefing, TOSE (トーセ, Japan’s largest contract developer) talked about their Switch 2 business for FY2026-08:

• Many new contracts of multi-platform releases including NS2
• Same for projects currently in negotiation
• Some titles already under development also added NS2 support

[Speculations] In the last few years, TOSE worked on Tales of Graces f Remastered, DQ Monsters The Dark Prince, and Crisis Core FF7 Reunion. It’s possible that they are involved in more Tales remasters and Square Enix spin-offs for Switch 2.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-23 Pacific Time]

Chinese customs data from 2022-01 to 2025-09 demonstrates that their game console exports are shifting away from the US to the rest of the world.

Source: Bloomberg

[Originally posted on 2025-10-22 Pacific Time]

Nintendo filed an application in Japan to register the design of a Joy-Con 2 Charging Grip without, well, a grip. They are unlikely to commercialize it themselves, but might license the design to Hori or other accessory makers.

[Originally posted on 2025-10-21 Pacific Time]