System and method for managing audio and video channels for video game players and spectators

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9339728-B2
Application number	US-201213495904-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 13, 2012
Priority date	Dec 10, 2002
Publication date	May 17, 2016
Grant date	May 17, 2016

Abstract

A computer-implemented system and method are described for managing audio chat for an online video game or application. For example, a system according to one embodiment comprises: an online video game or application execution engine to execute an online video game or application in response to input from one or more users of the video game or application and to responsively generate audio and video of the video game or application; and a chat subsystem to establish audio chat sessions with the one or more users and one or more spectators to the video game or application, the chat subsystem establishing a plurality of audio chat channels including a spectator channel over which the spectators participate in audio chat and a user channel over which the users participate in audio chat.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for managing audio chat sessions for online video games or applications comprising:
an online video game or application execution engine of a hosting service to execute an online video game or application in response to input from one or more users playing the video game or application and to responsively generate audio and video of the video game or application, the hosting service accessed over a network, wherein the input from one or more users is received from remote devices of the one or more users over the network and the generated audio and video of the video game or application is transmitted to the remote devices of the one or more users and to remote devices of one or more spectators to the video game or application; and
a chat subsystem of the hosting service to establish audio chat sessions with the one or more users playing the video game and the one or more spectators to the video game or application, the chat subsystem establishing a plurality of audio chat channels including a spectator channel over which the spectators participate in audio chat and a user channel over which the users participate in audio chat, wherein the spectator channel and the user channel are managed by the chat subsystem so as to enable audio chat sessions using the spectator channel and the user channel to be conducted concurrently, the chat subsystem configured to assign a priority level to each of the spectator channel and the user channel, the priority level used to set a priority of processing of the audio packets for the respective channel.

2. The system as in claim 1 wherein one or more spectators and users of the video game or application may join the spectator channel to participate in audio chat over the spectator channel and wherein users may join the user channel to participate in audio chat with other users over the user channel.

3. The system as in claim 1 wherein a first user channel is established for a first team of users playing the video game or application and a second user channel is established for a second team of users playing the video game.

4. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat audio subsystem further establishes a private chat channel between a user and one or more spectators, the private chat channel established in response to control signals received from the user and/or the spectators permitted to join the private channel.

5. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat subsystem further comprises a plurality of audio chat server modules supporting active audio chat sessions with each of the users and/or spectators, and wherein each audio chat channel comprises a plurality of nodes, each of the nodes associated with one of the audio chat server modules.

6. The system as in claim 5 wherein a server module may be associated with multiple nodes in multiple different audio chat channels, and wherein if a server module is associated with multiple nodes, the user or spectator associated with that server module may participate in audio chat for each of the audio chat channels having nodes with which the server module is associated.

7. The system as in claim 5 wherein a server module associated with one of the users is associated with a first node within the user chat channel and a second node within the spectator chat channel.

8. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat subsystem includes a selective muting function for each user and/or spectator, the muting function allowing the user and/or spectator to mute other selected users and/or spectators associated with the user channel and/or the spectator channel, wherein in response to the user and/or spectator muting one of the other users and/or spectators, the chat subsystem will not include audio packets from those other users and/or spectators in the chat audio stream sent to the user and/or spectator.

9. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat subsystem comprises program code for performing the operations of:
determining if audio contained in an audio packet received from a particular user and/or spectator is above a specified energy threshold;
if the audio contained in the audio packet is above the specified energy threshold, then mixing the audio with audio from other users and/or spectators to create a mixed audio stream; and
transmitting the mixed audio stream to the users and/or spectators.

10. The system as in claim 9 wherein if the audio contained in the audio packet is not above the specified energy threshold, then dropping the audio packet.

11. The system as in claim 9 wherein the chat subsystem comprises program code for performing the additional operation of:
mixing the audio from users and/or spectators above the specified energy threshold with audio from the online video game or application.

12. The system as in claim 11 further comprising:
an audio/video compression module for compressing the video received from the online video game or application and the audio received from the video game or application mixed with audio from the users and/or spectators.

13. The system as in claim 12 wherein the audio/video compression module compresses separate independent audio/video streams for each user and/or spectator using different compression.

14. The system as in claim 13 wherein the different compression is selected based on the current network connection with the client devices used by each of the users and/or spectators.

15. The system as in claim 13 wherein the different compression is selected based on the processing capabilities of client devices used by each of the users and/or spectators.

16. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat subsystem performs the additional operations of establishing video chat sessions with the one or more users and/or one or more spectators to the video game or application, the chat subsystem allowing authorized users and/or spectators to view video of other users and/or spectators as a video game or application is played or used.

17. The system as in claim 16 wherein the chat subsystem performs the additional operations of establishing a plurality of video chat channels including a spectator video chat channel over which the spectators participate in video chat and a user video chat channel over which the users participate in video chat.

18. The system as in claim 16 wherein video of each spectator and/or user participating in video chat session is displayed in a video chat window within the graphical user interface of one or more other spectators and/or users participating in the video chat session.

19. The system as in claim 17 wherein the video chat window is overlaid over a portion of the video of the video game or application being played or used.

20. The system as in claim 1 wherein the chat subsystem comprises one or more filters to alter the voices of selected users and/or spectators.

21. The system as in claim 20 wherein at least one of the filters is configured to alter the perceived gender of the user and/or spectator.

22. The system as in claim 20 wherein at least one of the filters is configured to alter the voice of the user and/or spectator to sound like a character in the video game or application.

23. The system as in claim 20 wherein at least one of the filters is configured disguise the voice of the user and/or spectator to hide the identity of the user and/or spectator.

24. The system as in claim 20 wherein users on the same team hear the actual voices o

Assignees

• Sullivan David R
• Mccool Robert
• Perlman Stephen G
• Sony Interactive Entertainment America Llc

Inventors

• Sullivan David R
• Mccool Robert
• Perlman Stephen G

Classifications

• A63F2300/572

  Communication between players during game play of non game information, e.g. e-mail, chat, file transfer, streaming of audio and streaming of video · CPC title

• A63F2300/513

  server hierarchy, e.g. local, regional, national or dedicated for different tasks, e.g. authenticating, billing · CPC title

• A63F2300/577

  for watching a game played by other players · CPC title

• G06F19/00

  Physics · mapped topic

• A63F2300/407

  Data transfer via internet · CPC title