@ vivalawiida, you would assume they did not take people from the Zelda and Mario teams to come up with this

what's the point of that peripheral?

To me the only point is destroy your HD tv, CRT tv screens tend to be more resilient, I say this because the natural thing would be to make the throwing motion which I'm sure game it's self will emphasize...the problem with this is that this peripheral will be heavy enough that when the throwing motion is complete the inertia from it will cause it to just fly out of your hands, even with the damn stap.

To be honest, it's useless, it may resemble a football, but you can't throw it, you can't kick it, you can't do any of the natural motions that is associated with it at all, any motions one will have to do will bring a disconnect between what the game has you do and the reality it's trying to mimic...in other words, it won't feel natural.

maybe they're just patenting random ideas to keep third parties from releasing stupid peripherals.

@ Roxaskey, that's what I thought.

I also think the folks at Siliconera are digging up these obscure patents to score some hits.

I came in here expecting to see a Wii-mote attached to someone's foot.

I love the player on the TV, he looks like an old Muppet Character or something?

I does. See the pictures again.

the above is a football, what the OP showed was not.

Or to keep both third parties and others (i.e., Microsoft and Sony) off their intent.

Of just to protect themselves in case someone else comes up with a really bad idea.

Mike from Morgantown

The patent is for gridiron football.
The sport others are talking about is association football -- which is called "soccer" in North America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football

Mike from Morgantown