New Nintendo patent could rival Xbox Series X Quick Resume

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo has filed a new patent which sounds similar to Xbox's Quick Resume feature.

As first spotted on Reddit, Nintendo has filed a brand new patent which would potentially allow users to resume multiple games and pick up exactly where they left off. You can peruse the patent filing for yourself here, but fair warning, it makes for some pretty heavy reading.

"In a game apparatus in which game programs for a plurality of games each including a title scene and a play scene are stored in a storage medium, a game to be executed is switched in a predetermined order by a user operating a first input device," the patent description reads.

"At a time of the switching, in the case where a currently executed game is in the play scene, the game is interrupted and switching is performed to another game, and, when the game is executed again later, the game is restarted from the time of the interruption of the play scene, and a first image showing the game is displayed on a display," the patent filing continues.

That sure sounds a fair bit like Xbox's Quick Resume feature, which it utilized on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles to immediately resume games exactly where users left off, with zero loading screens. However, as various users on the original Reddit thread point out, this Quick Resume feature on Xbox consoles requires an internal SSD to operate, something that both the current Nintendo Switch and the forthcoming Nintendo Switch OLED Model both lack.

Of course, there's no guarantee that this filing will ever turn into anything more concrete from Nintendo. Patent filings aren't always guaranteed to become a reality, and this one in particular could merely be something that Nintendo is experimenting with. Either way, it's highly unlikely that we'll see this patent become an actual piece of technology from Nintendo anytime soon.

For what you can expect from Nintendo's new console when it launches next week, head over to our Nintendo Switch OLED preview for more.

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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.