- for 20 years, Namco Bandai has held patent US 5718632 A which gives them ownership of the idea of a loading screen minigame
- companies that wanted to put mini-games during loading screens either had to pay Namco Bandai, work around the patent (like EA's FIFA - no idea what that is about, I don't play FIFA) or give up on the idea
- now you know why we have been bombarded with lame turorial info texts, trivias and still pictures for years
- patent expires this Friday, 27th
- no one can even start working on loading screen mini-games until the above date, the patent even forbids that
http://kotaku.com/the-patent-on-loading-screen-mini-games-is-about-to-exp-1744705351
With game running faster these days, it may be a little too late. But then there are still games with slow loading screens, right?
Nintendo is selling their IPs to Microsoft and this is true because:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=221391&page=1
