JPH07148352A - Tv game system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a plurality of games with the use of existing game boards without the necessity of using a complicated device, and to precisely inform a customer of the degree of popularity of each of games. CONSTITUTION:This TV game system is provided with a selector circuit 12 which can select either one of a plurality of game boards 11A, 11B..., and a counter circuit 13 for counting a number of times of selection for a game. A display unit 23 displays thereon title images of the games, successively, in response to manipulation of a select button 211. By depressing a start button 212 at the time when a desire title image is displayed, the desire game is started. The display unit 16 displays the degree of popularity of the game in accordance with a number of times of selection of the game.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a TV game system,
Specifically, it relates to a commercial TV game system installed in a game center or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a T installed in a game center or the like.
The V game machine is a so-called special-purpose machine, and only one type of game can be executed per machine. Therefore, it is necessary to install a plurality of TV game machines in the store in order to provide a plurality of kinds of games according to the taste of the customer, and it is difficult to effectively use the limited space in the store. Is. In addition, customers are concentrated on the popular game machines, and the operating efficiency of the unpopular game machines becomes low, so that the game machines cannot be used efficiently.

Therefore, in order to solve the above problem, a TV game system capable of providing a plurality of kinds of games per one TV game machine has been devised conventionally. For example, a first conventional TV game system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-286489 discloses a center provided with a plurality of software data and a plurality of TVs connected online with the center.
It is composed of a game machine and sends soft data from the center to each TV game machine in response to a request from each TV game machine.

Further, as a second conventional TV game system, there is one in which a ROM capable of providing a plurality of types of games is mounted on one game board and the game board is housed in one game machine. Had been devised.

[0005]

However, in the first conventional TV game system, since the soft data must be transmitted and received online, an extremely complicated circuit configuration is required and the device price is low. There was the problem of becoming expensive. Further, since the soft data itself is transmitted online, there is a drawback that the soft data can be easily decoded and copied.

In the second conventional TV game system, since the game is provided directly from the game board, problems such as copying of soft data do not occur. However, this TV game system has a new problem of incompatibility with the conventional game board. That is, since most conventional game boards can provide one type of game per game, it is not possible to use the conventionally accumulated game boards. As a result, a new game board has to be developed, which causes a problem of increased development cost.

Furthermore, in any of the first and second TV game systems, the customer cannot know the exact popularity of various games. Since the popularity of the game is a serious concern for customers, the popularity of the game is announced in game magazines and the like. However, the actual popularity of the game differs depending on the interview location, and the timing of publication in the magazine may be different. Therefore, the popularity of the game published in the magazine is inaccurate. Due to such circumstances, it has been extremely difficult for the customer to accurately know the popularity of the game.

Therefore, the present invention provides a plurality of games in the TV game system without using a complicated device structure by using the existing game board, and informs the customers of the accurate popularity of the game. The purpose is to tighten.

[0009]

The invention according to claim 1 is
A plurality of game boards each capable of providing a game, a selection means for selectively activating any one of the plurality of game boards, and a game provided by the activated game boards. And a display unit for displaying a game provided by the activated game board.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a TV game system capable of selectively providing any of a plurality of games, a selection number display means capable of displaying the number of times selected for each game is provided. It is a featured TV game system.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in a TV game system capable of selectively providing any one of a plurality of games, the order display means for displaying each game in order based on the number of times each game is selected is provided. This is a TV game system characterized by the following.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the TV game system according to the first aspect, further comprising the selection number display means according to the second aspect or the rank display means according to the third aspect.

[0013]

According to the invention of claim 1, the selecting means selectively activates (selects) one of the plurality of game boards. The game provided by the selected game board is displayed by the display means, and the user executes the game by operating the operation means while watching the displayed game.

According to the present invention, any one of the plurality of game boards is selected by the selecting means to provide the game, so that the conventional existing game board can be used as it is. Therefore, it is not necessary to redevelop a new game board, and a TV game system capable of providing a plurality of games can be realized at low cost. Further, according to the present invention, since the game is directly provided by the game board, it is possible to avoid problems such as decoding and copying of the game software which are caused by providing the game software online.

According to another aspect of the invention, the selection number display means displays the number of selections made for each game. The selected number of times represents the actual popularity of the game, and the accurate popularity of the game can be grasped based on the selected number of times. Further, the popularity of the game obtained by the present invention is more accurate than the popularity of the game published in magazines and the like without any gap in the publication time.

In the invention of claim 3, the ranking display means displays the ranking of each game based on the number of times the game is selected. The ranking of the game displayed based on the selected number of times represents the degree of popularity of the actual game. Therefore, the accurate popularity of the game can be grasped based on this display.

The invention according to claim 4 is the TV game system according to claim 1, characterized in that the display means according to claim 2 or 3 is provided. That is, even in the TV game system according to the invention of claim 1, it is possible to accurately grasp the popularity of the game.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a TV game system according to this embodiment. This TV game system is composed of a center 1 capable of selectively providing a plurality of games and a TV game machine 2 capable of executing the selected games.

The center 1 includes a plurality of game boards 11A and 1A.
1B, 11C, 11D ..., A selector 12, a counter circuit 13, a display circuit 14, displays 15 and 16 and the like. The game boards 11A, 11B, ... Are configured similarly to the game boards used in the conventional game machine, and include a ROM in which a game program is written, a work memory RAM, and a GDC (graphics / graphics) for controlling a display screen.
Display controller), I / O for data input / output
F, a CPU for game execution processing, and the like. Programs representing different types of games A, B, ... Are written in the ROMs of the game boards 11A, 11B ,.

Each bus of the game boards 11A, 11B ... Is connected to the selector circuit 12 via a JAMMA standard compatible connector. The selector circuit 12 is a TV
According to the operation from the game machine 2, the game boards 11A and 11B
One of the ... Is selected (activated) and the selected game board and the TV game machine 2 are electrically connected. The counter circuit 13 counts the number of times selected for each game board and records the counted number in a memory. The display circuit 14 displays a predetermined screen on the displays 15 and 16 according to the count number. The display 15 displays the count number of each game, and the display displays the game names in descending order of the count number. The display 16 is installed in an easy-to-see place in the store, and the customer can grasp the popularity of each game by looking at the display 16.

The TV game machine 2 has a control box 2
1, a buffer circuit 22, and a display 23. The control box 21 includes a select button 211 for selecting a game, a start button 212 for starting the game, and a joystick 213 for operating the game. The signal output from the control box 21 is input to the buffer circuit 22. The buffer circuit 22 is composed of a driver for sending an output signal to the selector circuit 12 with low impedance, and a driver for shaping the waveform of the signal output from the selector circuit 12. The display 23 is for executing the selected game. The customer operates the joystick 213 while looking at the display 23,
Enjoy your chosen game.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the selector circuit 12, the counter circuit 13, and the display circuit 14 described above.

The selector circuit 12 includes a control circuit 121, a multiplexer 122, a selection screen display control circuit 123,
It is composed of a buffer circuit 124. The buses 12A, 12B, 12C ... Of the game boards 11A, 11B, 11C ... Are connected to the multiplexer 122. The multiplexer 122 follows the control signal 125 and the bus 12
One of A, 12B ... Is selected and the selected bus is connected to the bus 126.

The selection screen display control circuit 123 is for synchronizing the respective video signals output from the game boards 11A, 11B, .... That is, since the game boards 11A, 11B ... Operate independently, the video signals output from the game boards 11A, 11B ... Are not synchronized. Therefore, select button 2 when selecting a game
When 11 is operated and the title screens of the respective games are sequentially switched, the screen is disturbed. The selection screen display control device 123 temporarily stores the video signals output from the game boards 11A, 11B, ... In a frame memory and synchronizes the video signals to prevent the screen from being disturbed when the title screen is switched. .

The buffer circuit 124 is composed of a driver or the like for sending out various signals (such as video signals) on the bus 126 with low impedance. Thus, by transmitting the signal with low impedance, the influence of external noise can be prevented. The control circuit 121 receives the select button 211 received via the buffer 124.
The multiplexer 122, the selection display control circuit 123, and the buffer circuit 124 are controlled in accordance with the signal of. In addition, the control circuit 121, every time a game is selected,
It also has a function of sending a selection signal 127 representing the selected game to the counter circuit 13.

The counter circuit 13 is composed of a counter 131 and a counter memory 132. In the counter memory 132, the count number (selection number) for each game is written. The counter 131 increments the count number in the counter memory 132 according to the selection signal output from the control circuit 127.

The display circuit 14 includes display control circuits 141 and 14
2. The synchronizing signal generating circuit 143 is provided. The display control circuit 141 generates a video signal indicating the number of times each game has been selected and displays it on the display 15. Also,
The display control circuit 142 generates a video signal representing the game name in the descending order of the number of selections and displays it on the display 16. The sync signal generation circuit 143 supplies the horizontal sync signal and the vertical sync signal to the display control circuits 141 and 142.

The operation of the TV game system according to this embodiment will be described next. First, the customer is the display 15, 1
By looking at 6, the types of games that can be executed are grasped. When a customer inserts a coin into the TV game machine 2 and presses the select button 211, the signal of the select button 211 is sent to the center 1 via the buffer circuit 22. The selector 12 of the center 1 sequentially selects the game boards 11A, 11B, ... Each time the select button 211 is pressed. That is, the multiplexer 122 sequentially connects the buses 12A, 12B, ... To the bus 126. Selection screen display control circuit 1
Reference numeral 23 synchronizes each video signal selected in order, and this video signal is passed through the buffer circuit 124 to the TV game machine 2
Output to the display 23. As a result, the title screens of the game A, the game B, ... Are sequentially displayed on the display 23. It should be noted that when the title screen has completed a cycle, the game A is returned to and the title screen is displayed. Even before inserting coins, the title screens can be sequentially displayed by pressing the select button 211.

When the customer presses the start button 213 when the title screen of the desired game is displayed,
The selected game starts. When the control circuit 121 detects that the start button 213 is pressed, it outputs the control signal 125 to the multiplexer 122. For example,
If game A is selected, multiplexer 122
Keeps the selected bus 12A and bus 126 connected. And the CPU in the game board 11A
By executing the program in the ROM, the operation of the game A starts. Also, the customer has a joystick 21
When 3 is operated, the signal from the joystick 213 is sent to the game board 11A. In this way, the customer can enjoy the selected game.

On the other hand, the control circuit 121 sends to the counter circuit 13 a selection signal 127 indicating that the game A has been selected. The counter circuit 13 increments the count number of the game A in the counter memory 132. The display circuit 14 is based on the count number in the counter memory 132,
Display the count number of various games on the display 15,
The ranking of the game is displayed on the display 16. Game A
When the ranking of the count numbers of each game changes due to the selection of, the changed ranking is displayed on the display 16.

As described above, by displaying the ranking of the selected game on the display 16, the customer can immediately grasp the accurate degree of popularity. The maximum score of each game may be displayed together on the displays 15 and 16.

[0032]

As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of existing game boards are prepared, and a desired game board is selected from the existing game boards to operate. Therefore, according to the present invention,
Since existing conventional game boards can be used as they are, there is no need to redevelop a new game board, and a TV game system capable of providing a plurality of games can be provided at low cost without requiring a complicated device. Can be realized. Further, according to the present invention, since the game is directly provided by the game board, it is possible to avoid the problems such as the decoding and copying of the game software which are caused by providing the game software online.

Further, since the present invention displays the number of times of the selected game, it is possible to immediately grasp a more accurate degree of popularity of the game as compared with the degree of popularity of the game published in magazines and the like. .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a TV game system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a selector circuit, a counter circuit, and a display control circuit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

11A, 11B, 11C, 11D ... Game board 12 ... Selector circuit (selecting means) 13 ... Counter circuit (selection number display means, rank display means) 14 ... Display circuit (selection count display means, rank display means) 15, 16 ... Display (selection number display means, ranking display means) 21 ... Control box (operation means) 23 ... Display (display means)

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of game boards each capable of providing a game, selection means for selectively activating one of the plurality of game boards, and a game board activated by the activated game board. A TV game system comprising: operating means for operating the game, and display means for displaying the game provided by the activated game board. 2. A TV game system capable of selectively providing any of a plurality of games, comprising a selection number display means capable of displaying the number of times selected for each game. . 3. A TV game system capable of selectively providing any one of a plurality of games, further comprising a rank display means for displaying the rank of each game based on the number of times each game is selected. TV game system. 4. The TV game system according to claim 1, further comprising the selection count display means according to claim 2 or the ranking display means according to claim 3.