What's so interesting about the above image? Is it that the man (?) has no eyes? Is it that he's not using the strap on the Wii Remote? No: it's that this isn't a patent drawing for the Wii Remote at all -- it's for a GameCube controller. The original Japanese patent was submitted by Nintendo in 2006, around the time Shigeru Miyamoto admitted, "[Wii] is based on GC."

Now we know its controller was, too, by way of the US Patent and Trademark Office's database, which also contains related drawings. One shows what this line-art person is playing (a tennis game with Mario) and the other is the proverbial smoking gun: a Wii remote and receiver connected to a GameCube, which is, in turn, connected to a TV with sensors attached. Check them out after the break.

Joystiq

No wonder Wii and Gamecube are so close each other

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=56286&page=1

damn. Didn't notice that. I apologise.

Also I thought this was well known, I'm sure Reggie or Iwata already explained that the Wii Remote was in the works for the GameCube before being moved to the Wii..

People have really bad memories..

No wonder the Wii has shonky graphics, the people who do these patent drawings can't draw to save themselves!

It should also be noted that patent drawings for products not yet released will utilize older generation hardware. The drawing are merely to demonstrate a visual of the patent and not meant to represent the actual product.

I've seen dozens of GC patents that used the N64 in the patent drawings. Sony does it too.

Since the patent was submitted in 2006, surely they weren't expecting to launch it as a GC add-on.

All this shows is that they were initially testing the Wiimote on the GC, which allowed them to begin developing Wii games before getting the final Wii hardware. One more advantage of the Wii being an updated GC in terms of hardware architecture.