MSFT Patents Dual, Wired and Wireless Controller

Hope SONY does have its own patents on PS3 controller.... or... it will be the rise of another patent war!

kyeanaWhy not just have it be wireless, and let you charge it to plug it in while playing?This seems overly complex to meExactly this
It seems pointless unless you know solar flares are about to knock out your wireless

Well, it's a continuation of the 2004 application, so it's not like it was JUST submitted. My guess is it's another defensive patent to block the NPEs that have sued sony, nintendo and ms in the past over fairly obvious designs hoping for a settlement (Fenner Investments, Eleven Engineering, Immerson, Anascape and so on and on and on). MS would never use this to go after Sony or Nintendo because: 1 - there's plenty of prior art that any company with decent lawyers could use, 2 - it's generally not a good use of capital to sue someone else who also has lots of capital on a case you'd be unlikely to win (see 1), 3 - if they sue sony or nintendo it'll be likely they'd come back with their own patent infringement suits because, as well all know, there's nothing new under the sun (man is just a hairless ape who figured out round things roll and how to put fire in a box and most everything invented has been permutations on those ideas :P). This stuff is as silly as the patent on "slide to unlock" (heck, the Predator had "slide to unlock" on his wrist computer self destruct dealie when he tried to kill Arnie).

can't you already buy an accessory that will let you do just this?

kyeanaWhy not just have it be wireless, and let you charge it to plug it in while playing?This seems overly complex to meAlready patented.

I think the next big thing will be an external charge/wired station that can transmit over longer distances having a true wired power source. Though I am not sure about delays of having a separate station to receive and then retransmit to the console itself. Still though, that is what I would want.