Patent ID: 8281118

Claim:
A method comprising: converting a first hardware platform of an electronic gaming machine to a second hardware platform, substantially disparate from the first hardware platform, the electronic gaming machine comprising: a standardized gaming platform including an operating system and one or more gaming modules adapted to perform various gaming machine functions, said standardized gaming platform being hardware platform independent; one or more hardware components defining the first hardware platform; an exterior housing arranged to contain at least one of said one or more hardware components therein; at least one non-volatile storage component adapted to store data regarding an overall state of the electronic gaming machine, wherein said data regarding said overall state is recoverable from said at least one non-volatile storage component after a substantial interruption to the electronic gaming machine; one or more code storage components containing computer code forming a software structure that includes a first game application, a first gaming platform, a first universal interface layer and a pre-boot system configuration, wherein said first gaming platform includes a first set of gaming software modules and a first operating system and is hardware platform independent, and wherein said first universal interface layer includes a second set of gaming software modules and is adapted to facilitate communication between said first gaming platform and said first hardware platform; and a master gaming controller in communication with at least one of said one or more code storage components and adapted to control one or more aspects of said game based on a wager and involving a potential grant of a monetary payout based on the game result, wherein said master gaming controller is adapted to execute said computer code forming a software structure, and is further adapted to execute at least one gaming software module without said first operating system being loaded; and replacing the first universal interface layer with a second universal interface layer, said second universal interface layer being adapted to facilitate communication between said standardized gaming platform and said second hardware platform.