Microsoft Patent Hints at Achievements for Watching TV

Good news for Arrested Development marathoners.


A Microsoft patent suggests that Achievements for watching television could be added to Xbox Live. According to a patent filed by Microsoft in 2011 (and published on May 16th), Microsoft seeks to “award a user” across a “TV ecosystem.”

“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content,” the patent states. “To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content. Producers, distributors, and advertisers of the video content may set viewing goals and award a viewer who has reached the goals.”

Such measures could be used for advertising, as the patent notes that “additionally, by tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities.”

The patent also suggests compatibility with Microsoft’s Kinect sensor, noting that “the viewing behavior may include an action performable by the viewer and detectable by one or more sensors, such as a depth camera.” The patent also mentions a system “configured to track the viewing behaviors of one or more viewers” that can “compile one or more user-specific reports of the viewing behaviors, and send the user-specific reports to a remote device to determine whether the user-viewing goal has been met.”

In addition to Achievements, “an award may be a virtual award, such as an addition to a viewer score or an update to an avatar associated with the viewer” as well as “coupons for an advertised product or service, or an actual product.”

For now, it’s unclear whether this patent refers to Xbox 360 or the recently announced Xbox One, but we’ve reached out to Microsoft and will update this story with any comment we receive. It's also worth noting that, like any patent filing, there's no guarantee that this will actually lead to a product or service being released.

Would you be interested in Achievements for watching TV? Let us know in the comments.

Source: GI.biz