Patent ID: 7878908

Claim:
A multi-user video game playing environment comprising: plural video game execution units each configured to execute video game instructions associated with a video game and to request portions of game program instruction code from a video game program being executed, where the video game when executed displays a virtual environment that includes an in-game character whose movement in the virtual environment is controlled by game play inputs from a user playing the video game, each requested portion of game program instruction code being determined based on one or more of the game play inputs, wherein each of the video game execution units is configured to generate read requests intended for an associated optical disk drive and receive requested information from the optical disk drive at a predetermined access rate; a mass storage device including a hard disk drive configured to store a video game library including multiple game programs, wherein the hard disk drive is capable of responding to read requests from each of the video game execution units many times faster than the predetermined access rate of the optical disk drive associated with each video game execution unit; a multiplexer, coupled between said mass storage device and said plural video game execution units, configured to multiplex requested portions of game program instruction code for one or more of the game programs read from the mass storage device to provide said requested portions of game program instructions to each of said plural video game execution units while said plural video game execution units are executing video game instructions; and interface circuitry configured to act as part of an optical disk emulator for the plural video game execution units by translating video game execution unit optical disk access commands into hard disk drive access commands for accessing data stored on the hard disk drive and to emulate the predetermined access rate of the optical disk drive associated with each video game execution unit in response to read requests from that video game execution unit.