No, it’s not the beginning of April, Nintendo really has patented a horseback riding controller. The patent, found by Siliconera, appears on the European patent office database website called esp@cenet and is called, “Horseback riding simulation“.
The device looks to be a compliment to the Wii Remote with the user sitting on an inflatable seat with their motion being sensed and used in-game. The patent abstract reads as follows:
An inflatable air cushion (52) or other type seat a person can sit on is instrumented with electronic input devices (56, 90) that can sense motion of the cushion and/or motion of the person’s body. Such input devices (56, 90) provide inputs to a computer graphics system that dynamically generates a responsive scene on a real time display. The sensed motion can be used to generate a graphics simulation of horseback riding.
Whether the controller ever becomes a real product is anyone’s guess, but who would have believed a tilting board you use to do exercises a few years ago? The patent was only filed in July this year, so it could be some time before we see anything or it could be Nintendo’s next big peripheral release.
Read more at Siliconera