Home video game system with hard disk drive and internet access capability

#The invention generally relates to special purpose, home video game systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a modem and hard disk drive-based enhancement for a home video game system to allow a video game player to dial-up a network service provider and communicate over the service provider's network to access the World Wide Web, send e-mail, play games and/or download executable programs, video and audio data to the system's hard disk drive.

#Over the years, special purpose home video game systems have been (and continue to be) immensely popular, notwithstanding the ever increasing presence of personal computers in households throughout the world. The latest generation of such dedicated video game systems utilize a user's color television to generate exciting game play involving three dimensional game worlds having striking depth and realism involving numerous animated moving objects.

#For the virtual millions of game players taking advantage of such low cost, special purpose video game systems, system operation and game play has been characterized by single location, stand alone operation. While home video game systems are designed for more than one player to play using multiple controllers attached to a single video game play console, such dedicated video game systems typically do not permit game play against other remotely located players.

#FIG. 1A is a perspective illustration of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

#FIG. 1B is a block diagram of part of FIG. 1A.

#FIG. 1C is an illustrative component interconnection diagram showing an exemplary embodiment of the present invention in a home video game system context.

#FIG. 1A is a perspective view of a presently preferred embodiment of the present invention showing an exemplary video game system 50 connected to a communications and bulk media expansion device 95. In the present exemplary embodiment, the video game system 50 may, for example, be the commercially available Nintendo 64 Video Game System. It should be recognized that the present invention is not limited to use with this exemplary video game system but rather may be adapted for use with a wide range of existing video game systems. Additionally, although the present invention is illustratively described using an add-on expansion device, it is contemplated that the enhanced video game system described herein may alternatively be packaged in a common integrated housing and sold as a single unit.

#In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, expansion device 95 is connected to an expansion port (not shown) located, for example, on the bottom housing portion of video game system 50. Even with the expansion device 95 attached to the video game 50, if a game cartridge 54 is inserted into the console 52, the system will start under control of the program resident in cartridge 54. Otherwise, it will start under control of a program resident on the hard disk drive embodied in expansion device 95 as described below.

#Expansion device 95, as shown in FIG. 1A, is preferably mechanically configured to match the appearance of the video game system console 52 and includes a modem and hard disk drive, as well as many other features described in detail below. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, expansion device 95 allows a video game player to dial up a network service provider and communicate over the service provider's network to access and surf the World Wide Web, send and receive e-mail, send real time messages and chat, play games and/or download video and/or audio information to the expansion device 95's hard disk drive. The expansion device 95 supports disk-based game play with both program and game data storage. The hard disk drive preferably has a capacity of at least one gigabyte. The modem associated with expansion device 95 should preferably be at least V.34 (33.6 baud) in performance and support caller ID, full duplex speaker phone and answering machine functions. Communication expansion device 95 is designed to be connected to external peripherals such as printers and video components and includes a cable TV tuner and video circuitry having picture-in-picture video capability and video overlay capability providing the ability to mix television video and video generated during video game play.