Sega holds a portfolio of 283 active U.S. patents according to the patent portfolio analysis tools available through Innography. The text cluster posted here shows that game devices receive the brunt of the company’s research and development focus although image processing and virtual spaces are also areas where Sega is showing some interest.
An improved multiplayer experience for Sonic games is at the center of U.S. Patent No. 8834269, titled Program, Game Device and Method of Controlling the Same. It claims a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing game instructions, a control means arranging a viewpoint and first and second characters in a virtual three-dimensional space and a rendering means projecting the first and second characters present in a field-of-view range from the viewpoint to a two-dimensional plane to create a game image. The system is designed to keep two video game players who are playing cooperatively within the same field of view even when one player has much greater skill than the other player and has gotten much further ahead in the game. This addresses a problem in which a player with less skill would fall so far behind that they wouldn’t be displayed on a screen, increasing the difficulty of making jumps or getting past other obstacles. Diagrams attached to the patent clearly show that the technology is very likely part of the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise.
An innovation which would seem to have a place in Sonic’s Special Stages, where the hedgehog runs through a 3D environment to collect rings and other bonus items, is reflected within U.S. Patent No. 8556718, which is titled Game Machine and Movement Control Method of Character. The patent protects a game machine with a game control means for controlling a character to move along a path set in a virtual 3D space and a special movement process means for moving a character which is in one path into another path adjacent to the path it’s taking while maintaining the same speed. The innovation is meant to address player frustration caused by erroneous movements which can cause a game character to fall into a hole or contact enemies which, as the patent notes, “spoils” a player’s mood.
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/08/06/sega-two-new-sonic-titles-2017/id=71598/
