According to a patent filing, the technology includes a "game interface tracks the position of one or more game controllers in 3-dimensional space using hybrid video capture and ultrasonic tracking system".
"The captured video information is used to identify a horizontal and vertical position for each controller within a capture area," continues the report. "The ultrasonic tracking system analyses sound communications to determine the distances between the game system and each controller and to determine the distances among the controllers."
The controller also fits together in a variety of combinations, much like the Menacer light gun peripheral for the Sega Genesis in the early 1990s. The original break apart PS3 controller design was actually unveiled in a separate patent filing earlier this year.
The Xbox 360, for its part, also saw its share of motion control rumours swirl throughout 2008. As of today, however, Microsoft has continued to deny the existence of a motion controller for that console.
Several months ago, a variety of legitimate publications got word of a PS3 Wiimote-like device that could split in two. We dubbed it the "DualMotion."
Today the patent for the DualMotion has been uncovered and while it uses accelerometers and LED-based tracking (similar to the Wiimote), the DualMotion also deploys ultrasonic frequencies to determine absolute xyz position (based upon controller distance from other controllers and your television).
Oh, and two DualMotions can assemble to make one big DualMotion. Just check it out in what we believe is the craziest patent diagram ever:
What's so unique about the DualMotion doesn't appear to be that it splits, but that it joins. In the leaked shots of the patent app, we see two different joined configurations. One puts them side by side, like a dual-wielded pistol, and the other attaches them butt to butt, like a dog bone or Requiem for a Dream.
Here are some picture sketches of the proposed design of the wiimote.
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