Nintendo's "Quality of Life" Patents

Nintendo is definitely planning on changing things up in the console battle, and soon. The legendary game developer has been pretty tight-lipped about its new "NX" console along with its "Quality of Life" initiative, promising only to tell the public more about them in 2016.

A new patent filing unearthed by a NeoGaf user, however, gives everyone an early glimpse at just what the company is planning. Here’s the abstract (the only part of the patent application in English):

"This information processing system comprises a portable terminal. The portable terminal detects sensor information for assessing a user’s emotions. It would be permissible, as an example, for the sensor information to be sound information which is detected by a microphone, or image information which is captured by a camera. The information processing system assesses the user’s emotions on the basis of the sensor information. The portable terminal detects the sensor information in a period when the said portable terminal is in a standby state. As an example, the said standby state is a state wherein a display of the portable terminal is off."

The device itself looks a little like an alarm clock, with a docking station and a ceiling projector. It’s right in line with what everyone has heard about from the "Quality of Life" initiative before, even if it doesn't necessarily indicate that Nintendo will release a final product that looks anything like this.

It uses a variety of input to give users a sleep score, which sounds like an incredibly effective way to introduce stress into an otherwise pretty relaxing activity. The ceiling projector shows the results, so that it's the first thing gamers see when they get up.