Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Erik John Arthur

James David Macauley

Ling Tony Chen

Yasser Baseer Asmi

Michal Bortnik

Steven Dale Lamb

James Nicholas Helm

Shelley Armstrong

Steven Ryan Gunn

Russ Glaser

Systems and method for providing a single sign in a gaming console that associates online activity that is out-of-game/cross game, and/or online activity that is in-game, and/or activity that is offline and in-game with that account. While online, a service tracks activity of gamers and provides usage statistics in a profile. While offline, the game console tracks the player's activity via a mechanism to collect detailed information about a specific player's in-game statistics and accomplishments. The offline activity is cached and uploaded when the console connects to the online service. Players can accumulate achievements offline that are credited towards online activities.

Application interface for tracking player identity

Contributing data to an on-line gamer database

Ubiquitous unified player identity tracking system

Methods and systems for providing dynamic emoticons during chat sessions across game consoles are disclosed. A dynamic emoticon may include haptic, visual, and/or auditory components. Each component may have an associated intensity level, e.g., based on a pressure with which a user of the game console presses a controller button or actuates a control input. The emoticon's auditory component may include or identify a sound effects filter or a known audio file; the emoticon's visual component may include or identify a visual effects filter or a known video or graphic file; the emoticon's haptic component may cause vibration of or force feedback on the controller. Emoticons may be sent from one voice chat participant's game console to another voice chat participant's game console across a network such as the Internet.

User interface for multi-sensory emoticons in a communication system

Ubiquitous unified player tracking system

Icon for a display screen

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Erik John Arthur