Revolution virtual console patent uncovered?

Nintendo have recently been granted a patent with the catchy title “Game information storage medium and game system using the same”, which may be related to the Revolution. The patent details the operation of an emulator and storage system embedded within a different system, and sounds suspiciously like the Virtual Console features touted to be part of the Revolution.

This patent implies a number of things, including the fact that the Revolution may have no dedicated hardware for emulation of older systems—also, since character selection comes before the game starts, new characters may be available to revitalise old games. By supporting emulation with “no unnecessary re-coding”, we may see much better backwards compatibility with the Revolution than the first of the next-gen consoles, the Xbox 360, has managed.