Posted Tue Nov 20, 2012 at 06:30 AM PST by Brian Hoss
In 2001, Nintendo purchased a minority stake in Gyration thereby acquiring the patent integral to the Wii's motion control.
In an interview with CVG, Tom Quinn explains how he directed his patent born of a concept to control airplanes with a motion controller and evolved to the point of controlling anything onscreen towards computer interfaces and games.
Through his connections he presented his motion control device to the Xbox team in Redmond. "But the meeting went terribly," describes Tom, "The attitude I got from them was that if they wanted to do motion control, they would do it themselves and make a better job of it. I mean, they were just rude."
Tom Quinn next tried Sony, "I'll never forget that meeting at Sony. We were in a tiny little room with a big PC projector and (Ken) Kutaragi (the 'father of the PlayStation') comes in, introduces himself, sits down and - I swear this is true - he closed his eyes the moment I started showing my pitch. He never opened them until I had finished."
Ultimately, Tom describes his subsequent presentation and contract with Nintendo as occurring just after a shake-up at Nintendo and amidst grave concerns that the GameCube was more miss than hit. Even with Nintendo looking for a new strategy, Tom's presentation incited an immediate heated discussion among a committee of senior staff. "And then, in the middle of this debate that was getting louder and louder, (Atsushi) Asada (Nintendo Chairman) barked something and there was total silence. That was it. He decided to license our patents for motion control, as well as buy some of our company."
Source: CVG
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