 Welcome back to Nintendo Prime and we have a three pack of stories for you today. Nintendo VR? Wait, what are we talking about? Yeah, Nintendo is working on a VR headset for a next generation device. A little interesting there. Oh, beyond that, we have some Zelda tears of the kingdom news today, multiplayer. Wait, what? No, seriously, it's actually a conversation we get to have today. It's like legitimate news. So what are you guys waiting for? Let's first let you know about today's sponsor, Ewan Racing. Get into our first story and this is because a brand new patent has come to light over Nintendo and VR. Now, as we know, a patent doesn't mean it's ever gonna become a thing that exists. This patent does have a lot in it. It was published back on November 17th, 2022. It sort of flew under the radar because people have been just kinda looking for, hey, can I get console references? Can I get this? Well, this is a really interesting patent and I discovered it originally over on the Nintendo Switch Reddit. And there's a little summary of it. I wanna go over by a Reddit user because it kind of explains how this patent works because it's really interesting and it also explains why this can't be for a current device. So it's a patent published on November 17th, 2022, Nintendo outlines a setup where a game console receives an input from a VR headset and a smartphone and seamlessly outputs a virtual world to both devices. To put it simply, let's imagine that two people are playing VR chess. Player one would see and interact with an entirely virtual chess board through a virtual reality headset. Player two would be able to join the game by using their smartphone's camera akin to the augmented reality function on the Nintendo 3DS. In other words, they would scan a small card using their phone's camera, so one of those AR cards, do use as a position tracker. After the smartphone has established a 3D space, a virtual chess board would be superimposed into the real world and shown to player two on their phone's display. A bystander may observe the game through a television that's connected to the game console and they actually have some images sort of showing this off. Now, this patent has been simplified quite a bit to get the gist across, but it does support more complex scenarios, like two players with a VR headset and one smartphone player. The secondary display does not have to be a smartphone. It could also be a TV or some other device. So does this mean Nintendo's developing a VR headset? To be extremely clear, the patent depicts a standalone headset that connects to a game console with a wire or wirelessly. It's not a headset where the switch tablet slots into it. So that means it's a standalone headset. The headset does contain four cameras, a left and right RGB camera, a left and right inferred camera, and the headset and its controller uses an inside out tracking system where they use two inferred base systems that are placed into the play area to track movement. This is similar to that of the Valve Index. So how does this relate to next generation Nintendo Switch or hardware? The current Nintendo Switch and its dock does not have the capability to adequately output an image to a VR headset whether wired or wirelessly. The current Nintendo Switch does not have adequate processing power to render a game for one, let alone two VR headsets. And it can't receive input from a smartphone or output in augmented reality either. So the conclusion, while this is obviously taken with a grain of salt, there is an entire patent on all of this and it just sort of looks like this would have to be an idea for Nintendo's next platform. And obviously with it connecting to the game console would be an accessory sort of like the PlayStation VR2 that's coming out next year. So really interesting to see Nintendo is sort of dabbling into VR and this looks like a pretty serious patent. Like to the point, they might actually have prototypes. But we'll have to wait and see if this ever becomes a thing that could just be experimenting and we never actually see it. But we know VR is a growing space and Nintendo experimented with it already with Nintendo Labo. So it wouldn't be shocking to see them take another step forward on whatever this next device is. Which by the way, the next device conveniently looked very similar to a dock plugged into a TV. Switch to anyone? Next up, we have a bit of a story from Sony's side of things on PlayStation 5 because are you actually curious how powerful a PlayStation 5 is? It's arguable we haven't really seen any of these current generation Xbox Series X and or PlayStation 5 systems pushed because most games have been cross-generation. While a game coming out next year is not cross-generation, so much so, one of the main people behind it are telling you this will be a showcase game. And we're talking about Final Fantasy 16. So, Neoki Yoshida mentioned during a live stream that the game running during the game awards was real-time rendering. So not like a pre-baked cut scene. I think that's really interesting. We've hear this term a lot. It's sort of muddled on what it means. Oh, it's in-game rendering, but then is it still pre-rendered? Doesn't say it's not pre-rendered. It's just, it's rendered in real time. But there's a lot of different meanings on what that can mean. What we do know is Final Fantasy 16 is exclusive to PlayStation 5 and we're just gonna have to wait and see how much it pushes. But he does say a few times throughout the live stream that he believes this is a showcase for what the PS5 is capable of. Final Fantasy games typically look pretty good. So I guess this could be the first real chance we get to see of how much is that next-gen leap really? Well, I guess we'll find out next year. And last up, our last story, and maybe the one you're most excited about. At least I am, because this is a game we actually know is coming, like theoretical stuff about pushing a system and stuff about VR headsets. That's all fine and dandy, but what about Tears of the Kingdom? This is not a theoretical thing. It exists. It's coming out and it's arriving on May 12th. Here's the thing. They're starting to get ready to market it, right? Marketing's a thing, right? There's gonna probably be a Nintendo Direct or a Zelda Direct or some sort of crazy thing, commercials, maybe a Super Bowl commercial. I have no idea. There's gonna be a bunch of marketing happening for this game over the next five months. Well, marketing materials are starting to probably, at least assumedly, arrive at some retail outlets, right? Because they wanna start pushing pre-orders and all that. Well, a Dutch retailer has gotten some of their marketing material, which are just these little pamphlets they hand out to customers when they pre-order games. And on the back of this pamphlet, it has Nintendo Switch Online listed right there, really big. You guys are seeing it right now, like just right out in the open. And now, to play Devil's Advocate, this Nintendo Switch Online logo thing could mean nothing because it could just be cloud saves. Gotta be fair here. Cloud saves are a thing. However, this retailer has had our advertising for other games for Nintendo Switch that were exclusive from Nintendo, like Kirby and the Forgotten Land. And it didn't have this, even though Kirby and the Forgotten Land supports cloud saves. So why are we specifically showing Nintendo Switch Online in marketing material with this game when they don't do that with all the other games that support? That's when you have to start wondering, is this a bit of a leak that there will be some sort of online multiplayer aspect to Tears of the Kingdom? And it should be notable. This wouldn't be the first time Nintendo has dabbled in multiplayer. Sure, we've got about four swords and four swords and ventures, but there's Tetris trackers. Oh, and don't forget, what about that multiplayer game that was a Tash of Phantom Hourglass? What about Triforce Heroes, an entirely online multiplayer experience? Well, you could play a single player, but you know what I mean. Online multiplayer isn't technically new for Zelda. It's just never appeared in one of their biggest games. So is this gonna be online co-op? Is there gonna be a special mode in the game that's online? Is this just, maybe we're transferring data? You know, there's like Pokemon, you could trade Pokemon to Pokemon games? Are there items and stuff that we could trade with our friends? Can I trade monster parts over here for rupees over there? I have no idea. I don't know what this means, but you gosh darn no, we're gonna be talking about it on tonight's podcast because we have a banger of a podcast for you guys tonight. One of the, well, it's just special, okay? We got a lot to talk about for 2023, including Tears of the Kingdom. We have a bunch of guests coming on. You're right, more than one, a bunch of special guests coming on. Yes, Eric will be here as well. It's gonna be a blast and we're gonna be talking about this in so much more because guys, things are ramping up. 2023 is almost here and man, am I getting excited. All right guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this video, drop a like, subscribe to the channel and I'll catch you in the next video.