In the future, DLC will reign supreme, no titles will be playable offline, there will only be a handful of big games–all free to play–and, if Sony has its way, you'll need your fingerprints…for something.
Joystiq reports that Sony filed for a patent in 2012 named "Process and Apparatus for Automatically Identifying User of Consumer Electronics," and it reveals that Sony would like to take biometric data via fingerprint sensors.
Such a "feature" would allow Sony to identify the user…assumedly without having to manually log on. If implemented, PS3's might not be the only thing that go missing when there's a robbery–so might fingers! Yikes.
Personally, I'd be fine with such security measures, as ridiculous as they might seem to some people. I would genuinely see it as a feature: a scary feature, sure, but I'm not going to pretend like a crazy amount of my data isn't being had for dinner by a number of companies out there. Maybe it's a bad thing that I've just accepted that's how it is….and maybe I shouldn't be so trusting about my information when it's Sony, specifically, given all the blunders they've had with privacy before. Though those blunders may be why Sony is pursuing something like this in the first place.
For now this is but a mere patent though, so do not fret yourself too much. The Wii Vitality Sensor never saw release, and many crazy patents we read about never do, either.