In what might be the most unusual news we hear from the gaming industry this week, Sony is apparently trying to patent a way to use bananas as controllers. Well, that’s a bit of a simplistic way to put it: What Sony’s actually done is patent a way to use items players might have around their house as peripheral controllers. We’re still not sure why, but it’s as if there always needs to be a why, anyway.
The patent application was originally discovered by GamesIndustry.biz, which showed off the rather absurd illustrations that accompany it. Whatever else you can say about this application, those are fun to look at. Also, you come across the word banana so many more times than you’d expect, even with the illustration.
What is the patent actually for? In layman’s terms, it would allow a “passive non-luminous object” not already a game controller to be scanned and allowed to function as a game controller. The objects the patent application uses to demonstrate this just happen to be a banana and two oranges.
So yeah, the point of the tech for which Sony is seeking the patent (this is just an application, not the patent itself) is to allow users to turn ordinary items into controllers. Why they chose bananas to demonstrate this on, however, escapes me. I know bananas are a reliable measure of scale, for example, but I suppose I never considered that the first thing I might grab to act as a controller when my DualSense is out of reach is a banana. But then again, I suppose it is somewhat ergonomic. Still, if you’re hoping this will mean we dual-wield bananas in the sequel to Superhot, then maybe don’t put your money on it: Just because Sony applied for this patent doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll even develop the tech.
