Nintendo Has Applied for Five New Poké Ball Plus Patents

Last year we saw the arrival of Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee which allowed players to make use of a Poké Ball Plus controller that was able to be used to control the character as well as be used in capturing Pokémon. The controller was also compatible with Pokémon GO, the popular Nintendo mobile game developed by Game Freak which launched in 2016 and resulted in popularising GPS-focused games.

It has been noted that Nintendo has filed for five new Poké Ball Plus patents in Japan with the images of the patents being available below. The numbers being 特開2019-202117, 202091, 202092, 202093, and 202094.

The images seem to show the Poké Ball Plus as it currently stands. I’ve not really seen much difference between the one currently available, and the one that’s being proposed in the patents. So while much doesn’t seem to be changed with design, there’s a good chance that if anything new is being applied it’s going to be focused on hardware or protecting the design.

As usual, patents don’t mean there’s solid proof that anything is going to come from these, but it’s certainly interesting to see.

Japanese Nintendo does say.

“The patents aim to properly arrange components in a spherical controller, to enable various operations using a game controller, to properly arrange components in a spherical controller, to improve the degree of freedom for a structure for light emission in a game controller, and to provide a game controller in which components are properly arranged in a substantially spherical game controller.”

The newly released Pokémon Sword and Shield doesn’t allow users to use the Poké Ball Plus as a controller, and while speculation has started about a new Let’s Go title being on the way, Game Freak has already said they have no current plans to make new Let’s Go titles. However, they might “if the demand is there.”

Here are the patents that were shared by Japanese Nintendo, and were taken from PDF’s thanks to J-Plat Pat.