Msoft probably saved some money for a contingent loss like this

hmm... I'm going to say this is where Sony lost some money along the way before the PS3 launch. They might have to purchase the rights to use it in the PS3. This is why we dont have ingame chat yet.

I dont know the specifics but I'm going to think it has to do with external software used by the game system's hardware at the sametime as using internet and playing a game.

I believe with the PS2 internet adapter it had built in voice chat software.

PC developers can't be sued because voice chat is either built into the game or an external program not developed by the PC manufacturer.

I'm going to patent a methode of breathing air through multipul "lungs" or "lung-like" organs

Patents are becoming a nuisance IMHO....I mean...people make the most generic patents...then just wait until some company has the balls to do something useful with it...before they try to sue like the clown shoes they are.

Seriously, if you want to patent something, it should be required that you have a working prototype that does specifically what you claim in your patent. Sure it's great to protect an idea, but I can think of an idea for millions of things that I'm sure other people have also thought of. Anyone can think of an idea, patents should only protect those who are actually trying to use that idea.

If these guys had working software to do this, then by all means they are in the right, but if they just patented the idea, then I hope they get sued by someone else the day after they settle with MS.

That would be unacceptable.

While patent trolling has become an insidious tax over innovation, with such a caveat people with smaller R&D budgets couldn't get any patent at all. Currently you have many engineering offices and labs patenting concepts to pursue financing with the patent as their bargaining card. 

As bad as things are now, I do not want a society where intellectual rights are only allowed to either the rich or the corporations wich is what would ultimately happen if your idea went through.

^Some balance between the two, then, is needed.

I can see where my idea would be bad for those who cannot afford to make their own prototype right away, but at the same time there has to be some sort of better protection so people can't just patent every idea in the world just to sue others. Some way of deciding whether the patent is genuine? I can't really think of how they would do this......

The whole patent process is flawed because you can use a general patent and so long as your item is not "different" enough from an existing patent, you're screwed.

see nintendo was smart to not include that in their system

Yeah, shrug.

That's one hell of a pandora's box.