It is well-known that Nintendo is fiercely protective of its own IPs and software. Fans have been vocal about their dislike of the Japanese Video Game Company’s business practices for years. That has not stopped Nintendo, as the years go by, it seems that they have only gotten stricter. According to OpAttack, on Wednesday, May 19th, 2022 Nintendo’s recent patient filing was made public by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The abstract reads:
The technology described implements attestation programs that employ “code reuse” techniques. In particular, the technology relates to auto-generating attestation programs for, among other aspects, detecting whether a program has been modified. In one non-limiting example, the technology uses a tool that scans a software program (e.g., a video game) code for usable code sequences. The tool can automatically combine code sequences to generate a large number of attestation programs of different variety (e.g., memory checks, hashing).”
As summarized by OpAttack, this patent describes the proposal of “a digital attestation program which will keep on checking any possible code changes as most cheats or piracy tools attempt to change to programming of a software.” The patent also delves deep into Nintendo’s reasoning behind this new program. Here are some more brief snapshots:
Video game systems have enabled players to participate in various different gaming environments for decades. Games are designed in a manner so that the players are presented with a finite set of parameters, boundaries, and rules in which to play the game…Certain players may modify the game program and/or game meta-data in a manner that was not intended by the original designer(s) of the game…Thus, certain drawbacks exist when designing a video game environment in a manner that reduces or restricts modification in this manner.
While Nintendo’s draconian methodology around protecting their IPs draws anger from many, Nintendo brings an interesting point. The patent may be long for some, but it’s packed with information that any Nintendo fan would want to see. For a complete picture of the situation, read from the official source.