Over the past couple of months,Sonyhas patented some truly wild and potentially wonderful features and implementations that have the potential to substantially alter the gaming industry in the long run. Whether this potential ends up being realized or not, only time will tell, but in the interim, the company is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Sony’s latest patent is, in fact, well in line with many of the company’s recent listings, as it too relies on AI to make an organic, real-time decision depending on what the player might be doing. Specifically, Sony has patented a special attention-based feature that could determine in-game content availability depending on how the player is behaving, and what they might be focusing on.
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The listing is somewhat similar toSony’s previous Helper Mode patent, in that it adds an extra layer of interactivity to an already feature-rich virtual experience. As described in the official listing, this patent would keep track of what the player (or, presumably, their in-game character) is looking at, and use this information to somehow curate and filter the specific side quests, interactions, and other available content. According to Sony, this feature may even be used to affect a player’s in-game morality stat, allowing the AI to tailor the experience and tweak it according to the player’s behavior - all in real-time.
One of Sony’s previous patents referenceda new way to customize player engagementin games, and the latest listing has a number of parallels with that specific patent. Side quests and optional content, namely, appear to be particularly interesting to Sony. If all of these patents were to materialize, which may or may not happen, PlayStation games might host specialized in-game AI that could detect the player’s interests, generate optional content on the fly, and then curate it according to their behavior.
Of course, Sony isn’t the only company that seems to be looking ahead for its patent submissions.Activision recently submitted a game-generating patentthat would analyze videos that players are looking at, then attempt to create an interactive side experience that they could engage with on the side. This feature, too, seems improbable with the current level of available technology, but it might be something that Activision will end up using in the long run.
Sony’s patents seem to be taking a similar approach as of late. Thespoiler-blocking patent from Sony, for example, might come about in the relatively near future, but it’s always worth reiterating that nothing might come of it. In the end, it’s going to take time and money for each one of these patents to come to fruition if they are even realistically feasible, but simply submitting them for licensing is hardly an issue for companies like Sony and Activision.
