Game system and storage medium

• US 10,449,447 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2016
• Issued: 10/22/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Inventors: Matsumoto, Tatsuya
• Primary Examiner(s): Torimiro, Adetokunbo O
• Application Number:
  US15/220,519
• Publication Number:
  US 20170036109A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,182 Days
• Field of Search: 463 20, 463 21, 463 39, 463 42, 463 43
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/25 Output arrangements for video game devices
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/32 using local area network [LAN] connections
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/95 Storage media specially adapted for storing game information, e.g. video game cartridges
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/203 Image generating hardware
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/207 for accessing game resources from local storage, e.g. streaming content from DVD

Abstract

A non-limiting example game system comprises a server and a plurality of game apparatuses, each game apparatus emulating a game program. If applying a predetermined instruction during a game, a game screen is captured and an image file is produced. Furthermore, at this time, emulator status information is uploaded to the server from a game apparatus. Then, the server transmits a URL indicative of a storing location of the emulator status information to the game apparatus. The game apparatus writes the URL as metadata of the image file, and uploads the image file to the server. Furthermore, the game apparatus downloads a desired image file from the server, and downloads the emulator status information according to the URL that is acquired from the downloaded image file. An emulator status of another game apparatus can be reproduced by reading this emulator state information.

Claims

1. A game system, comprising:

a first game apparatus;

a second game apparatus different from the first game apparatus; and

a server,

wherein the first game apparatus is configured to;

execute a game according to a game program;

produce an image file that includes reproduction information required in order to reproduce a scene of the game, corresponding to a specific moment in the game program that is currently executed, as metadata, and image data for the scene of the game; and

transmit the produced image file to the server, and

wherein the second game apparatus is configured to;

acquire the image file from the server; and

execute the same kind of game program as the game program based on the reproduction information included in the acquired image file while designating a scene of the game to be reproduced.

2. The game system according to claim 1, wherein

the first game apparatus is further configured to acquire, when the game program is executed, at least status information including game data about the game of the game program, and transmit the acquired status information to the server, and

the second game apparatus is further configured to acquire the status information from the server according to the reproduction information included in the acquired image file, and

execute the game program using the acquired status information.

3. The game system according to claim 2, wherein the reproduction information includes information indicative of a storing location of the status information, and the second game apparatus is configured to acquire the status information from the storing location that is indicated by the reproduction information.

4. The game system according to claim 3, wherein the first game apparatus is configured to acquire the information indicative of a storing location of the status information from the server when the status information is transmitted to the server, and produce the image file that includes as metadata the information indicative of a storing location of the status information.

5. The game system according to claim 2, wherein each of the first game apparatus and the second game apparatus are further configured to execute an emulator program and emulate the game program by executing the emulator program, and

the status information is status information of an emulator.

6. The game system according to claim 2, wherein the status information is a game parameter in the game program, and each of the first game apparatus and the second game apparatus executes the game program using the game parameter.

7. The game system according to claim 1, wherein the server is configured to produce screen data corresponding to a selection screen for selecting a single image file from a plurality of image files,

the second game apparatus is further configured to select a single image file from the plurality of image files in the selection screen corresponding to the produced screen data, and acquire the image file that is selected.

8. The game system according to claim 1, wherein the image file is of a general-purpose file format.

9. The game system according to claim 8, wherein the general-purpose file format is a JPEG format.

10. The game system according to claim 9, wherein the reproduction information is described in a user comment area that is included in Exif data of the image file of the JPEG format.

11. The game system according to claim 1, wherein each of the first game apparatus and the second game apparatus is capable of executing a plurality of different kinds of game programs, and

the first game apparatus is configured to transmit image files about scenes of games of the plurality of different kinds of game programs to the server.

14. The game system according to claim 1, wherein the reproduction information further includes emulator status information that is transmitted to the server in the image file.

15. The game system according to claim 14, wherein the emulator status information includes status information of an emulated virtual CPU and an emulated virtual memory.

16. The game system according to claim 15, wherein the status information of the emulated virtual CPU includes data stored in one or more registers included in the virtual CPU, and the status information of the emulated virtual memory includes image data stored in an emulated virtual RAM (VRAM) and game parameter data stored in the emulated VRAM.

17. The game system according to claim 1, wherein the first game apparatus receives a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) from the server and writes the URL into a comment area included in exchangeable image file format (Exif) data of the image file.

18. The game system according to claim 1, wherein a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) indicative of storing location of emulator status information is included at the metadata of the image file.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a control program executable by a game apparatus that is included in a game system comprising a plurality of game apparatuses and a server, wherein the control program, when executed by a computer of the game apparatus, causes the game apparatus to:

produce an image file that includes reproduction information required in order to reproduce a scene of a game, corresponding to a specific moment in a game program that is currently executed by the game apparatus, as metadata, and image data for the scene of the game; and

transmit the produced image file to the server.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a control program executable by a game apparatus that is included in a game system comprising a plurality of game apparatuses and a server, wherein the control program, when executed by a computer of the game apparatus, causes the game apparatus to:

acquire an image file from the server; and

execute a game program about a game based on reproduction information included in the image file that is acquired while designating a scene of the game to be reproduced, the image file including the reproduction information corresponding to a specific moment in a game program, as metadata, and image data for the scene of the game to be reproduced.