Massively Single Player?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/12/nintendo-patents-massively-single-player-term/

I don't normally comment on news, but this caught my eye on Massively. At first glance, I'm reminded of Spore: Other players made creatures and, as long as you were connected to the internet, they would show up in your game. And then I become sad because Spore didn't turn out to be the game it was hyped up to be.

There are plenty of interpretations on how this could go. Judging by the article, the Spore model is what they are going for. It's an interesting model, though I'm curious about how it would fit into other scenarios. In terms of events, I suppose a filter would be in place as to not flood a player with events. But if it attracts a large playerbase, what is the different between the events happening other than the name attached to them?

Say we have a city, and at intervals something would happen in said city that another player did in his game. A simple model, but the specifics of the event would be rather generic. And since the game is single player, it is not as though you can alter the event, unless the game is prepared to mimic the event, say a bank robbery, to allow another player to intervene.

Every scenario I am considering leads to your standard game with some friends names attached to the events. But these are only first reactions, and I'd love to see how they might innovate with it.