From the time we first noticed this patent made public, it seems as if how much they resubmitted with either adding or clarifying usage of said device in details. Has been as if it were on a needed time frame or something. I completely forgot to mention about the claimant for the patent discussing the nature of how it would theoretically work in an interview.
I know I've seen you state plenty of times that a patent approval doesn't designate whether a company can reveal and sell a product or not. As many products are made available to the public with patents pending... But we are talking about a very secretive Japanese company that runs their business from the artist standpoint and not the suit and tie ranks.
This patent application was filed June 3, 2014. Typically patent applications will be published somewhere between 3 and 18 months from the filing date, and this number typically will depend on how many applications are filed in a particular area of technology. In this case it was published December 3, 2015, exactly 18 months after filing, so at the high end of the wait period.
There was absolutely nothing stopping this application from being published on September 3, 2014 besides the fact that this technology center of the USPTO is typically one of the busiest. Nintendo/Joseph could have filed a non-publication request, in which case the patent application would not have been made of public record until August 16, 2016, but they chose not to.
Therefore, based on when and how they filed the patent application, Nintendo/Joseph were perfectly fine having this invention become public knowledge as early as September of 2014, so they clearly weren't banking on this being top secret. I don't know how else to prove it to you.
Also they only submitted one amendment to the claims, which is almost the minimum amount of "resubmissions" that are needed to get a patent granted (occasionally a patent will be granted without ever getting a non-final rejection and therefore zero amendments, but that's fairly rare from my experience). Again, there is nothing in the prosecution history of this patent which indicates Nintendo values it any more than any of their other patents.
Again, all that being said, I still find it to be one of the more interesting patents they've submitted, but there is no evidence anywhere showing that they are more focused on this tech than any other, or that they were ever trying to be secretive about it.