Microsoft Patent Could Lead to More Local Split-Screen Multiplayer Games
Microsoft appears to be showing interest in bringing back split-screen multiplayer thanks to a patent that reached publication this week. The system described in Microsoft's patent seeks to leverage streaming technology in order to provide split-screen multiplayer capabilities for modern games.
Multiplayer gaming has always been an extremely popular way to enjoy games, and many gamers fondly remember split-screen sessions on the couch with their friends. In modern gaming, the majority of multiplayer is carried out remotely without a split-screen. Gamers playing together generally need to be using two displays and two consoles in order to play their favorite games together. This sort of online multiplayer certainly has its advantages as it doesn't require players to be physically present, but many gamers also miss the connection from being able to see what each other is up to on a shared screen.
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The patent from Microsoft, filed last September seems to have found a new solution for split-screen multiplayer. In essence, it's a system where separate streams of a game are merged onto a single display. Rather than burdening the players' computers and consoles with two to four times the rendering load as in classic split-screen implementations, the system will use the internet and the cloud instead to stream each player's audio and video merged into a split-screen frame. This not only makes it possible for multiplayer games without local multiplayer support to now be capable of things likelocal co-op split-screen but also allows for remote split-screen, an exceedingly rare format at this time.
Split-screen gaming has fallen by the wayside in modern generations of
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