Mar 04, 2021 10:06:00

Sony applies for a patent that uses a banana as a controller

Sony has

applied for patents such as 'a friend robot that sits next to you and watches the game play' and ' a technology for watching live e-sports venues in VR ', but new fruits such as bananas are used as controllers. It is clear that we have applied for a patent that will change it.

Sony's controller tech is literally bananas | Patent Trawling | GamesIndustry.biz
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-03-02-sonys-controller-tech-is-literally-bananas-patent-trawling

Sony wants to turn bananas into controllers • Eurogamer.net
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-03-03-sony-patents-tech-that-can-turn-a-banana-into-a-controller

The patent filed by Sony is to turn 'a non-luminous passive object held by the user' into a controller. The camera scans the object you want to convert to a controller, but tracking is based on the contours and colors of the pixels, objects in the image taken by the camera, so you don't need a special barcode. You can also tell the user 'which household items can be used as a controller'.

In the patent application, bananas and oranges are used as passive objects to turn into controllers. Users will be able to use bananas to operate the in-game camera and perform operations such as acceleration, deceleration, and braking.

It is also possible to use two objects as controllers at the same time, and it seems that you can play the game with two bananas.

In addition, since this technology is basically to 'operate as a controller while tracking the object with the camera', the controller will not operate if it deviates from the angle of view of the camera, so the game will be paused.

Besides, it seems that a virtual button can be placed on the object. However, it may require AR or VR technology to display buttons on the object.

In addition, Sony applied for a patent on a new controller for VR in November 2020.

Sony has adopted the PlayStation Move motion controller as the controller for PS VR, but the new patent-pending controller eliminates the spherical light on the top surface and replaces it with a small LED panel that can emit various colors. It is arranged.

According to the patent application, the new controller for VR has the same features as the PS5 dedicated controller DualSense. For example, there is a trigger button on the back of the controller that changes the feeling of pressing, and it seems that it also supports haptic feedback that reproduces various tactile sensations by vibration.

Since Sony has announced the development of a next-generation VR system for PS5, it is quite possible that this patent will be realized.

Sony announces development of next-generation VR system for PS5 --GIGAZINE