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Also was the pc not doing this before Sony or Microsoft? who do you sue on the pc though?
every game maker with a multiplayer title?! Every game publisher with a title that infringes the patent. nowadays i suspect Steam would be vulnerable and games for windows live perhaps.
seems a bit odd to me that they can sue but if sony settled out of court maybe they felt they had no way of winning so it'll be interesting to see how MS fair. services you could sue. but not every publisher.
isnt pc multiplayer more like p2p?
does epic still pay for the servers for UT 99?!
cause there are still loads of they games going on today. doubt epic are still running servers for that. Of course the publishers could be sued, after all it is the developers that are infringing on the patent and the publisher has overall responsibility for the game.
I am pretty sure many pc games use the same method as the 360 where one of the players machines is the server. These articles don't really go into too much detail of why they are suing. I am thinking maybe the methods the companies are using to communicate live while playing are infringing on their patents(well, they are claimed to be by the plaintiffs). Nintendo couldn't sue Sony for their motion tech because the method they use is different. Hoover couldn't sue Dyson for their Vacuum cleaner because even though essentially, they suck up dirt, but the way they work differ in a way that patents do not get infringed. Something like that. Unfortunately tech patents do not seem to follow the same rules.
Amazon for instance have patented one click shopping. Not the implementation but the whole idea. This is just like patenting the vacuum as a whole rather than the way it works..... how can someone patent such an obvious and major thing like that.. Wtf. You can patent pretty much anything, the key is making it have enough innovative qualities in the first place to stand up as much as possible to potential similar products. As someone said though theres little real info here and no doubt Microsoft either feel they have a good case or intend to railroad the case because no large organisation goes to high profile litigation without a solid standing. Didn't a similar thing happen with vibration controllers? Sony settled out of court for a few million dollars but MS went to court and really got nailed for tens of millions So why exactly are they suing MS specifically and not Sony or Nintendo for that God-awful Animal Crossing communicator thing?
Sounds a bit too broad if you ask me. Surely they could sue anyone who decided to play Doom over the internet whilst chatting on the phone. He... He patented speaking to each other whilst playing videogames? @ altitude2k
Read the article you muppet, sony settled out of court.
@ leefear1
PC games have dedicated servers, that is why you never get a host ended game as the server never stops running (unless it crashes or someone switches it off). Xbox and PS3 games use a console as host, so if the host leaves or quits then everybody in the game gets kicked. Dedicated servers are superior to user console hosting. | 
