PlayStation Patent Reveals Tech To Pause Games For Breaks

Update:

While this patent was uncovered through ResetEra, we have corrected the source link to the original publication to discover the patent.

There are several patents that go out all the time. Unfortunately, only some patents come to fruition, but they are at least fun to look through. In fact, one patent discovery from Sony might give your PlayStation consoles a bit more insight into what you’re doing. The PlayStation 5 could use everything from cameras and controller sensors to microphones as they attempt to hone in on when a player is taking a break. Here’s what was discovered in a Sony patent for their PlayStation platform.

For starters, we found this patent from ResetEra, although it was originally uncovered by Hunter Miche from SegmentNext and it’s something that Sony could implement with the hardware already available for the PlayStation 5. It’s all for a means to ensure your console can pause a game and perhaps save on power when you’re not actively playing a game. So this means if this patent technology gets executed and delivered into the market as an update, there’s nothing you’ll necessarily need to purchase. That’s, of course, if you already have the first-party gear.

With this tech, the PlayStation 5 console will be able to notice when a controller is sat down. Right now, there’s nothing indicated to the console that a player is setting the controller down for a break. There’s just an AFK countdown that goes on after a lack of activity. This is something that could change through the help of different devices and sensors connected to the PlayStation 5 console. According to the patent, it looks like there will be a series of checks the console could perform to determine if a player is taking a break or just sitting the controller down for a moment. 

Those identifiers range from controller motion, microphone amplitude, and images from the camera. So it looks like Sony’s console is going to take cues from once a controller is sat down, any audio presence, and even using the camera to tell if the player is actually within the area. That could be a bit of an invasion of privacy for some users, even if there’s nothing actively being sent out from the data captured.

Ultimately, this should be interesting to see if a user could turn these checks off or not. Regardless, this is only a patent and not a feature currently available. We might never see this feature come to fruition, but at least we have some insight into what Sony is potentially considering in a future update.

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