Directed Audio Beam Sharing for Gaming Machines
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current electronic gaming machines lack the ability to efficiently share audio content between machines, limiting the immersive experience for players who want to share gameplay sounds or other audio events with friends or groups, and do not provide a private and directed audio delivery mechanism.
Innovation Solution
The system enables electronic gaming machines to share audio content by using a network interface, processor, and memory device to receive invitations, filter audio, and output directed sound beams based on user preferences and positions, allowing players to share and receive gameplay audio privately through headphones or directional speakers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If electronic gaming machines share audio content through network interfaces, then players can share gameplay sounds and audio events with friends or groups, but audio privacy for other players is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by directing audio beams to specific spatial locations where receiving players are positioned. The audio content is transmitted with directional focus rather than omnidirectional broadcast, ensuring that only players in the intended reception zone can hear the shared audio. This spatial differentiation allows audio sharing functionality while preserving privacy for players outside the designated audio beam paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces directional audio beams as an intermediary mechanism between the transmitting and receiving players. Instead of direct audio output from headphones or speakers, the system uses controlled sound propagation paths that act as intermediaries, allowing audio content to be shared selectively through the gaming environment while maintaining privacy boundaries.
2Loss of information
If all audio content is transmitted between gaming machines, then complete gameplay experience is shared, but network bandwidth is consumed and latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and transmits only the essential audio content elements needed for the shared gaming experience, rather than transmitting all audio data. By selecting and transmitting only relevant audio events and sounds, the system reduces network bandwidth consumption and transmission latency while maintaining the completeness of the shared gameplay experience.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by transmitting a subset of audio content that is sufficient for the sharing purpose rather than the complete audio stream. This selective transmission approach reduces network load and latency while providing adequate audio sharing functionality for the intended use case.
3Ease of operation
If directional speaker arrays are used to output audio beams, then audio can be directed to specific players, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamics by making the audio beam direction adjustable and adaptable to player positions. The speaker array configuration can dynamically change based on where receiving players are located, allowing the system to maintain simplicity in operation while providing sophisticated directional audio capabilities through adaptive reconfiguration rather than fixed complex hardware.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure relates generally to gaming machines, systems, and methods. As an example, a method is disclosed that includes receiving an invitation that provides a description of audio content to be shared, providing a query to a user of an electronic gaming machine requesting a confirmation to play the audio content to be shared, receiving a positive response to the query, sending a command to a different electronic gaming machine to transmit the audio content to be shared, receiving the audio content to be shared from the different electronic gaming machine, identifying a subset of a plurality of speakers from a speaker array to activate based on a determined position of the user relative to the speaker array, and causing the identified subset of the plurality of speakers to output the audio content to be shared as part of a directed sound beam.