Program Mode Transition

• US 20120004041A1
• Filed: 09/13/2011
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Pereira, Rui Filipe Andrade, Perry, David, Gault, Andrew Buchanan
• Granted Patent: US 9,211,473 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/33 using wide area network [WAN] connections
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/35 Details of game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/352 involving special game server arrangements, e.g. regional servers connected to a national server or a plurality of servers managing partitions of the game world
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/355 Performing operations on behalf of clients with restricted processing capabilities, e.g. servers transform changing game scene into an encoded video stream for transmitting to a mobile phone or a thin client
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/358 Adapting the game course according to the network or server load, e.g. for reducing latency due to different connection speeds between clients
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/86 Watching games played by other players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 9/24 Electric games; Games using electronic circuits not otherwise provided for video games A63F13/00; computerized gaming systems G07F17/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/365 Dynamic adaptation of the packet size
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/75 Media network packet handling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality

Abstract

A computing system is configured to execute a computer program on a server and to provide a video stream of the program output to a geographically remote client over a communication network. The computing system is further configured to provide executable content of the computer program to the client over the communication network in parallel with the video stream. When a sufficient amount of the executable content has been provided to the client execution of the computer program is transitioned from the server to the client. The transition optionally includes communicating a state of the computer program from the server to the client. The executable content can be provided to the client in an order that is determined based on the state of the computer program. Those parts of the executable content deemed most likely to be necessary to support game play on the client are given priority.

Claims

1. A method of providing a computer game, the method comprising:

receiving a game command from a client;

receiving a game state from a game server;

in a streaming mode executing game logic of the computer game on a video server system, execution of the game logic resulting in rendering of a video stream based on the game state and the game command;

in the streaming mode providing the video stream from the video server system to a remote client over a communication network; and

transitioning from the streaming mode to a client mode in which the video stream is no longer provided at the video server system and a majority of the video of the computer game is rendered on the client.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising

receiving a game command from the client at the video server system and, in the client mode, forwarding the game command to the game server;

and

receiving a game state from the game server and, in the client mode, forwarding the game state to the client.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the video server system is configured to provide video streams for a plurality of different video games.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the game state is a subset of a global game state maintained on a game server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication network includes a telephone network, the internet or a cable television network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the video stream and the executable game content are provided to the client over different communication networks.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the different networks include the internet and a telephone network, or the internet and a cable television network.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the different networks have some segments in common.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the transition occurs before all of the executable game content is provided to the client.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the transition includes providing a network address of the client to the game server and/or providing a network address of the game server to the client.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein parts of the executable game content are downloaded to the client in both the streaming mode and the client mode.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that an executable subset of the executable game content has been downloaded to the client.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the executable subset is dependent on a current state of the game.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein game video generated at the client and game video received from the video server system are directed to a same browser window.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein video is both generated on the client and received by the client from the video server system, in parallel for a period of time.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the received game command is used to update the game state on the video server system in the streaming mode, and the received game state is not used to update the game state on the video server in the client mode.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising reverting to streaming mode from the client mode.

18. A method of transferring a game session between clients, the method comprising:

establishing a game session between a game server and a first client;

receiving a game command from the first client;

using the received game command to update a first state of a computer game;

sending the updated first state of the computer game from the game server to the first client;

receiving a command to transition from a streaming mode to a client mode of the computer game;

receiving an address of a second client;

associating the address of the second client with the game session such that a second state of the computer game will be sent to the second client and/or such that a game command received from the second client will be associated with the game session;

receiving a game command and using the address of the second client to associate the received game command with the game session; and

sending the second state of the computer game to the address of the second client.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising authenticating the command to transition from the streaming mode to the client mode.

20. A video server system comprising:

a video source configured to provide streaming game video to a first client geographically remote from the video source, the streaming game video being generated at the video source and being based on a state of a video game; and

transition logic configured a transition the video server system from a streaming mode to a client mode, the streaming mode including providing the streaming video of the video game to the first client from the video source, the client mode including generating video of the video game at the first client.

21. The video server system of claim 20, further comprising a download manager configured to download executable content of the video game from a code source to the first client via a network while the streaming video is being provided to the first client from the video source in the streaming mode.

22. The video server system of claim 21, wherein the code source includes a second client.

23. The video server system of claim 20, wherein the transition logic is configured to communicate a network address such that game commands and game states are sent to different locations in the streaming mode relative to the client mode.

24. The video server system of claim 20, wherein the video server system is configured to act as a proxy server in the client mode and, as a proxy server, to forward game command from the first client to a game server and to forward game states from the game server to the first client.

25. The video server system of claim 20, wherein the transition logic is further configured to transition the video server system from the client mode to the streaming mode.

26. The video server system of claim 20, wherein the transition logic is configured to transition between the streaming mode and the client mode while maintaining a same game session in which the video game is played in both modes.

27. The video server system of claim 20, wherein the streaming game video is not provided to the first client from the video source in the client mode.