As far as I can tell, this only applies to “game machines”. So basically you have an input (dance pad), that gets converted by the “game machine” and displayed on a monitor. Since the suggestion is talking about purely software with no physical machine I don’t think the patent applies.
You could argue that a computer works the same way, but the patent specifically states “game machine”, not computer. I take “game machine” to mean a machine that only has one purpose; to run the game. It’s an external, physical object that translates ‘step’ movement to actions in the game, and is not the same as using fingers to press buttons on a keyboard.
It also clearly states that it uses arrows, so a workaround could just be using circles that display a key and a color, instead of arrows that display a direction to press.
But I really think just adding it in and having it be exclusively software based is enough. ITG (In The Groove) got shut down because they sold a separate game ‘dance mat’ that basically functioned exactly like a DDR machine and translated ‘step’ movement to in-game inputs.