U.S. Patent No. 10,369,465: System and method for streaming game video

Issued August 6, 2019 to Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC
Priority Date: December 10, 2002

Summary:
U.S. Patent No. 10,369,465 (the ’465 Patent) relates to streaming game video from a hosting service to a player’s computing device that allows the player to utilize the hosting service’s computing power to play the game, rather than the player’s local device. The ’465 Patent details a method of using a hosting service that includes servers with powerful CPU and GPU processing capabilities to run a game application from the hosting service, which is then streamed to a player’s device. The player’s device receives input from the player (such as from a keyboard and mouse or controller), transmits that input over the Internet to the hosting service, which then executes that input, and streams the results back to the player. This requires a low-latency video compressor to minimize input lag. 

Abstract:
A system and method are described for managing the state of an online video game. A method includes initiating a new online video game in response to user input from a client device, the online video game being in a first state on a first server when initiated; executing the online video game on the server, thereby causing the online video game to enter a second state; pausing or terminating the online video game; determining differences between the first state and the second state and generating difference data containing the differences; transmitting the difference data over a network to a second server; and recreating the second state from the difference data and the first state in response to user input indicating that the user wishes to resume the online video game and in response to the second server being selected as the server on which to execute the video game.

Illustrative Claim:
1. A server system, comprising: a processor configured to execute a game application for simultaneous play by multiple users in accordance with signals received from multiple client computing devices respectively corresponding to the multiple users to generate multiple video streams of graphical output of the executed game application, the multiple video streams of graphical output of the executed game application respectively corresponding to play of the game application by the multiple users, wherein the processor is configured to generate multiple user interfaces for respective transmission to the multiple client computing devices, each of the multiple user interfaces including separate video windows, the separate video windows in any one of the multiple user interfaces respectively displaying the multiple video streams of graphical output of the executed game application, each of the multiple user interfaces configured for transmission as a single user interface video stream to a respective one of the multiple client computing devices in lieu of separate transmission of the multiple video streams of graphical output of the executed game application to the respective one of the multiple client computing devices, wherein at least one of the separate video windows in each of the multiple user interfaces is an interaction-selectable video window that is selectable to enable user interaction within the game application executing to generate the video stream of graphical output displayed within the interaction-selectable video window; a network connection configured to connect the server system to a network over which data is transmittable to the multiple client computing devices; and an encoder configured to compress each user interface video stream into one or more encoded formats for transmission through the network connection to corresponding ones of the multiple client computing devices.