EDIT:  Just Dance 3 bundled with this could sell boatloads.

So, instead of a disco ball with multiple colour, you get this with 1 colour at a time?

Sony already did this with the testicle on the end of the Move controller!

...

just not with as many colors.

Come on. Testicles come in pair.

See the video to see how Philips uses it. But the use would go further than that, turning it all black when suspense starts to build up, adding streaks of light when you need impact, signalling an incoming message, etc. I've always liked these ambilight TV's from Philips.

i've seen that before and i think it's pretty cool.

not exactly a game changer but certainly more interesting to me than the vitality sensor.

A lot of companies (like Nintendo) do a lot of "pure research" in a field, and patent most of what they create from this research. There are multiple reasons for this but one of the key ones is protection from patent trolls. Nintendo's next system will likely have dozens of new features in it, some of which are very practical and others that are not, and Nintendo want to be protected from someone claiming that their patent for "videogame system with coloured lights" entitles them to millions of dollars from the sale of their console.

This is what I was thinking as well.  The color is there for accessibility - an easy way for the player to know what his heartrate actually is.  It's too hard to stop in the middle of the game and try to consciously figure out if your heartrate is a bit a high or too low for the current demands on screen.

Either way this peripheral actually seems like one of the cool ones considering all the other wacky patents that have rolled around.  I think there was a teddy bear patent at one point...